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Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, D. D., LL. D.
Volume XI
D K
American C^urcQ Siefore ^
^ AS
A HISTORY P^M
THE METHODIST CHURCH, SOUTH
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
AND
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SOUTH
IN THE UNITED STATES
BY
PROFESSOR GROSS ALEXANDER, D. D.
JAMES B. SCOULLER, D. D.
PROFESSOR R. V. FOSTER, D. D.
AND
PROFESSOR T. C. JOHNSON, D. D.
^
NEW YORK
OHABLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1911
Copyright, 1894, by
The Christian Literature Co.
PREFACE
In a history confined to brief limits, only a general out-
line of leading events can be given. The leading events in
the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took
place, for the most part, in connection with the General
Conferences. This fact has largely determined the plan
and order of treatment in the present instance. It is true,
also, that in the case of the Southern Methodist Church
the action of the various General Conferences has been,
throughout, representative, in a singular degree, of the
thoughts, views, and status of the membership at large.
But for these considerations the scheme of treatment ac-
cording to General Conferences might seem arbitrary and
artificial.
The author has drawn largely upon the original sources,
and has introduced what may appear frequent and lengthy
extracts from the original documents. This seemed better
than to give his own abstract of their contents. The re-
production of essential portions of the original documents
will give to the history a reality and authority, and to the
reader a corresponding sense of satisfaction, which could
not come from any summary, determined and colored, as
that would be, by the author's interpretation of the origi-
nals. These are accessible to only a few. With the ex-
PREFACE.
tracts given in the following pages, the general reader will
be in a position to form his own judgments and to draw
his own conclusions.
The task of the author was confessedly a difficult one.
A minister, conversant with the history, humorously said
to him :
** Lo, on a narrow neck of land
'Twixt two unbounded seas you stand."
The difficulty of the task was rendered still greater by
the limitations of time and space which were imposed.
That mistakes have been made it is almost certain; that
the work will meet the approval of all readers cannot be
hoped. The writer has performed his task not as he would,
but as, under the circumstances, he could. No one can
be more sensible than he of the imperfections of the work.
He bespeaks the charitable judgment of his readers. Those
who occupy a different point of view will doutless find
much to criticise.
My thanks are due and are given to my colleagues.
Dr. Charles Forster Smith, Prof. Collins Denny, Prof. O. E.
Brown, and to Dr. E. E. Hoss, editor of the '* Nashville
Christian Advocate," for looking over proofs, and for many
helpful suggestions. No one, however, is responsible for
the views herein expressed but the author himself.
G. A.
Theological Department, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tenn., January 24, 1894.
CONTENTS.
THE METHODISTS, SOUTH.
PAGB
CHAP. I. — Preliminary History. — Introduction. — The Situation in
the Colonies. — Early Legislation. — Case of Mr. Capers. — Bishops'
Address, 1840. — Withdrawal of the Wesleyans I
CHAP. II. — The General Conference of 1844. — Attempts at Pacif-
ication.— The Character of Bishop Andrew. — Bishop Andrew's Res-
ignation.— The Finley-Trimble Resolution. — Postponement Sug-
gested by the Bishops. — Extracts from the Protest. — Declaration
of the Southern Delegates. — The Plan of Separation. — The Motives
of the Southern Delegates. — Contention for the Constitution and
Law. — The Canada Precedent of 1820 15
CHAP. III. — The Organization of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. — Address of the Southern Delegates. — The
Louisville Convention. — Organization Completed 38
CHAP. IV. — The First General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South. — Bishop Soule's Communication. —
Dr. Capers and Dr. Paine Bishops. — Fraternal Delegate to M. E.
Church 44
CHAP. V. — Opposition and Friction. — Bishop Morris's Letter. —
Later Action of M. E. Church 51
CHAP. VI. — Second General Conference of the M. E. Church,
South. — The Property Question. — Bishop Bascom 57
CHAP. VII.— The Third and Fourth General Conferences of
THE M. E. Church, South. — The Publishing House. — Mission-
ary Enterprises. — Bishop Paine's " Life of McKendree." 62
CHAP. VIII. — Some Glimpses of the War Period. — Revivals in
the Army. — " The Army Church " of Bishop Marvin. — The Situa-
tion at the Close of the War. — The General Conference of 1866. . . 69
CHAP. IX. — The General Conference of 1866. — Important
Changes. — Sketch of Bishop Marvin. — Sketch of Bishop McTyeire.
— Renewed Enthusiasm 79
CONTENTS,
PACK
CHAP. X. — The General Conference of 1870. — The Veto Power
of the Bishops. — The Colored M. E. Church. — Dr. Bledsoe and
the " Southern Review." — Address on Worldly Amusements 88
CHAP. XI. — Leading Events from 1874 to 1894. — The Cape May
Commission. — The Publishing House Debt. — Vanderbilt Uni-
versity.— Dr. Thomas O. Summers. — The Centenary of American
Methodism. — Bishops Kavanaugh and Pierce. — Prohibition and
Divorce. — General Conference of 1890 97
CHAP. XII. — The Missions of the Church. — Early Attempts. —
Unmonumented Heroes. — Large Number of Converts. — Pioneer
Work in China. — Three Missions in Mexico. — Mission to Japan.
— Woman's Missionary Society. — Woman's Parsonage and Home
Mission Society. — Scarritt Bible and Training School 114
CHAP. XIII. — General View and Conclusion. — The Latest Statis-
tics.— Educational Institutions. — Periodical Publications. — Homo-
geneity of Southern Methodism. — Fraternity, Federation, Fusion. . 132
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS.
CHAP. I. — Reformed Presbyterian Element. — Scottish Cove-
nanters.— Persecution in Scotland. — Covenanter Immigration. —
First Communion. — Reformed Presbytery Organized. — Union with
the Seceders 145
CHAP. II. — The Associate Presbyterian Church. — The Seces-
sion in Scotland. — Secession Completed. — Secession Organized ... 158
CHAP. HI. — The Associate Church in America. — Thomas Clarke.
— Opposition to Union with Burghers. — Increase of Ministers.- —
Union of Covenanters and Seceders 165
CHAP. IV. — The Associate Church after 1782. — Testimony. —
Covenanting. — Synod Organized. — Slavery. — Sympathy with Pro-
fessor Paxton. — Reformed Dissenting Presbytery. — Psalmody. —
Union 174
CHAP. V. — The Associate Reformed Church. — Display of Princi-
ples.— Formulating Standards. — Presbytery of Londonderry. — Oc-
casional Communion. — Dr. J. M. Mason. — Decay of the General
Synod. — Union with the Presbyterians 184
CHAP. VI. — The Associate Reformed Synod of New^ York. —
Morgan Abduction. — Temperance Movement. — Return of Library.
The Slavery Question. — Union with the West 203
CHAP. VII. — The Associate Reformed Synod of the West. —
Organization and Field. — Theological Seminary. — Action anent Slav-
ery. — Temperance. — Testimonies. — Foreign Missions. — Church
Votes 214
CONTENTS, vii
PACK
CHAP. VIII.— The Union of 1858.— Conventions Abandoned.— The
" Testimony." — The Union Consummated 225
CHAP. IX. — The United Presbyterian Church. — Intoxicating
Drinks. — Improved Psalmody. — Church Organizations 233
CHAP. X. — Education. — Schools and Colleges. — Theological Semi-
naries 240
CHAP. XI. — The Boards of the Church. — Freedmen. — Foreign
Missions. — Ministerial Relief. — Publication 245
CHAP. XII. — Denominational Attitude. — Headship of Jesus. —
Peculiarities. — Conservative 251
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS.
Bibliography 258
CHAP. I. — Origin and Name 259
CHAP. II.— Causes.— James McGready. — Revival in the Cumberland
Country. — Cumberland Presbyterian Council. — The Council Con-
demned 260
CHAP. III. — The New Presbytery. — Strict Sabbath Observance. . . 268
CHAP. IV. — A Circular Letter. — Proposition of Rev. David Rice.
— Cumberland Presbytery Formed. — Strife between Presbytery and
Synod. — Strife Continued. — Desire for Peace. — Defense of the
Council. — Fraternizing Advised 272
CHAP, v.— The First Synod.— The Synod Organized.— Perils of
Travel 286
CHAP. VI. — A Larger Growth. — Growth of the Work. — Secret of
Success 290
CHAP. VII.— Missions 295
CHAP. VIII.— Education 297
CHAP. IX. — Publication 299
CHAP. X. — In Relation to the Negro 300
CHAP. XL— Progress 301
CHAP. XII. — Doctrines. — Departures from Westminster Confession.
— Doctrine of Atonement. — Doctrines 303
THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS.
Bibliography 313
CHAP. I. — The Southern Presbyterians before 1861. — The An-
cestors.— Rice's Overture on Missions. — Leading Ministers 317
viii CONTENTS.
PAGB
CHAP. II. — The Origin of the Presbyterian Church in the
Confederate States. — The Assembly of 1861. — Rev. Dr.
Spring's Resolutions. — Rev. Dr. Hodge's Protest. — Effect of the
Resolutions. — The Southern Church Organized. — The Augusta
Convention. — Rev. Dr. Palmer's Sermon. — Organization Effected.
— Missions among the Indians. — Committee of Domestic Missions.
— Other Committees Organized. — "Address to the Churches." —
Separation Defended. — The Subject of Slavery. — The Ends Pro-
posed.— Clerical and Lay Leaders 324
CHAP. III. — The Growth of the Church and Development of
Her Agencies to the Present. — Revival Methods. — Pastoral
Work. — Foreign Missions. — The Executive Committee. — Recom-
mendation of the Assembly. — Foreign Missionaries. — Home Mis-
sionaries. — Home Missions. — The Invalid Fund. — Presbyterial
Evangelism. — Dr. Girardeau's Paper. — Colored Presbyterian
Churches. — Church Erection and Loan Fund. — The Board of Aid.
— Education. — Committee of Education. — Union Theological Semi-
nary.— Tuscaloosa Institute. — Washington and Lee University. —
Davidson College. — Westminster College. — Publication. — Colport-
age. — The Charter of the Assembly. — Voluntary Agencies 357
CHAP. IV. — Changes in the Constitution and Life of the
Church. — Conditions of Altering the Confession. — Revision of
Book of Church Order. — Forms of Prayer. — Revision of Directory.
— Temptation to Lax Life. — The Social and Moral Life of the
Church. — Attitude of the Church toward Lynch Law 410
CHAP. V. — The Relation of the Church to other Bodies. —
Non-Secular Character of the Church. — Transient Inconsistencies.
— The Church Renewing its Testimony. — Union with the Inde-
pendent Presbyterians. — Union with United Synod of the South. —
Patapsco and Alabama Presbyteries. — The Synod of Kentucky. —
The " Declaration and Testimony." — Old School Assembly, North,
1866. — The Kentucky Synod Outlawed. — Consummation of the
Union. — Union with the Synod of Missouri, O. S. — Correspondence
with other Bodies. — Correspondence with Reformed Church. — Re-
lations with the Assembly, North. — Correspondence with Presby-
terians, North. — The Conclusion 422
HISTORY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL
CHURCH, SOUTH.
BY
GROSS ALEXANDER, D.D.,
Professor Greek and New Testament Exegesis, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tenn.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.i
General Sources.
Journals of the General Conferences from 1796 to 1844. New York Meth-
odist Book Concern. *
Journals of the General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church
South, from 1846 to 1890.
Journals of the General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church from
1848 to 1856. New York, Methodist Book Concern.
Fraternal Addresses of various Fraternal Delegates.
II. Histories and other Special Sources,
Anonymous, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 1845.
Curtiss, G. L., Manual of Methodist Episcopal Church History. New
York, Methodist Book Concern, 1893.
Elliott, Charles, D.D., History of the Great Secession from the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Cincinnati, Methodist Book Concern, 1854.
Harrison, W. P., and Barnes, Miss, The Gospel among the Slaves. 189:?.
John, J. G., D.D., Handbook of Methodist Missions. 1893.
McTyeire, Bp. H. N., History of Methodism. 1884.
Matlack, L. C, The Antislavery Struggle, and Triumph in the Methodist
Episcopal Church. New York, Methodist Book Concern, 1881.
Merrill, Bp. S. M., Organic Union of American Methodism. Cincin-
nati, Methodist Book Concern, 1892.
Myers, E. H., D.D., The Disruption of the M. E. Church. 1875.
Peterson, P. A., D.D., Handbook of Southern Methodism.
Bedford, A. H., History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. 1871. ^
Simpson, Bp. Matthew, A Hundred Years of Methodism. New York,
Methodist Book Concern, 1876.
III. Biographies (arranged by subjects, not authors),
Andrew, Bp. James Osgood, by George G. Smith.
Bascom, Bp. Henry Bidleman, by M. M. Henkle. 181:4.
Capers, Bp. Wm., by Bp. Wm. M. Wightman. 1858.
McFerrin, John Berry, D.D., by Bp. O. P. Fitzgerald. 1888.
McKendree, Wm., by Bp. Robert Paine. 1859, 2 vols. ; new ed. abridged,
Marvin, Bp. Enoch Mather, by T. M. Finney.
Pierce, Bp, George Foster, by George G. Smith. 1888.
V^'^J^f v°^^'5'"'^^^^ ^'^*^'^' ^^^^^ ^o^^s are published in Nashville, Tenn.,
at the Publication House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Barbee
and bmith, present agents.
THE METHODISTS, SOUTH.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY HISTORY.
In I ']66, Methodism, which had turned old England up-
side down, came hither also, to this new world. It planted
itself, as if by a prophetic instinct, simultaneously in two
places, one of them in the South, one of them in the
North. From these two centers and throughout these
two regions it extended itself in every direction, through
New York, New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,
through Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.
Nevertheless this Methodism was one,
One army of the living God,
coalescing more and more under the plastic hands of As-
bury and Rankin, and taking organic form in the confer-
ence of 1773 and those that followed. It was not Northern
Methodism and Southern Methodism ; it was Methodism, —
Christianity in earnest, seeking and saving the lost. To the
influence and the extension of this common Methodism the
North contributed and the South contributed. If the North
gave to Methodism such men as Nathan Bangs and Free-
born Garrettson and Joshua Soule, the South furnished her
2 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
quota of such as Philip Bruce and Jesse Lee and William
McKendree. If increasing and incredible thousands were
annually added to the rolls of the church and the number
of the saved in New York and New England, answering
thousands were added in Virginia and the Carolinas, in
Georgia and Tennessee. In all that Methodism accom-
plished and in all that Methodism was, the North had an
equal part with the South and the South had an equal
part with the North — unless in point of numbers the North
had somewhat the advantage. But while this was true,
in another respect, the South had an advantage over the
North, due, however, in no way, to the fault of the North.
The Rev. Dr. Bristol, fraternal delegate of the Method-
ist Episcopal Church, said, at the General Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1890: *' I
am not ignorant, brethren, of the fact that the colored
people of the South are indebted to your fathers for their
Christianity and for their Methodism." If there was,
then, a department of the great work to which the one
section of the church had access and the other had not,
except in a very limited way, it was the opportunity and
privilege of giving the gospel to the African slave popula-
tion of the United States. This the Methodists in the
South did, for the most part; with what success is par-
tially indicated in the fact that in 1844 there were about
125,000 of these sons of Ham enrolled as members of the
church and sons of God — -a larger number of practically
heathen converts than all the missionary societies of
America had gathered upon all the fields of the heathen
world. So that while the portion of the church which
operated in the North had the preponderance in num-
bers, the Southern portion, besides having gathered 5
membership of 350,000 whites, had, with infinite and un-
recorded patience and toil, reached .^nd Christianized a
INTRODUCTION. 3
practically heathen population of over 100,000 souls. On
the whole, then, it was about an even stand, and neither
portion could boast of any great superiority over the
other. Neither had made the Methodist Episcopal
Church without the other: neither was the Methodist
Episcopal Church without the other.
There came a time, however, when, for reasons suffi-
cient and irresistible, in their opinion, the members of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the South thought that,
in view of the condition of affairs which had arisen, they
could best conduct their work and operate their field
under the jurisdiction of a separate General Conference.
To this the representatives of all the Annual Conferences
of the undivided Methodist Episcopal Church, in General
Conference assembled, in the city of New York in 1844,
agreed, by a majority little less than unanimous ; and for
this they made provision in what is known as the Plan of
Separation, conditioned upon the necessity of a separate
General Conference, that necessity to be determined by
the Annual Conferences of the Southern States.
In accordance with this plan of separation, the Method-
ist Episcopal Church, South, consisting of all the Annual
Conferences in the Southern and Southwestern States,
was organized as a distinct ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in
the month of May in the year 1845. As to the cause or
causes of this event, we shall be better able to decide
after tracing the history of the events that led to it. It
is enough, at present, to say that it was in connection with
the problems arising out of the existence of African slav-
ery and its relations to church and state.
It is unnecessary to recite here the facts, that slavery
existed at one time in all the original colonies of the
American Union ; that the business enterprise of New
England, as well as that of old England, was active in
4 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
supplying African slaves for American markets; and that
originally it was chiefly the accidents of climate and cot-
ton and rice and sugar, and not the superior morality of
the people of other sections, that determined the prepon-
derance of numbers and the permanence of slavery in the
South. " In the Eastern and Middle States the system
of slave-labor was gradually abolished, being unprofit-
able," says a Northern and a Methodist historian of the
United States.^
Says another : " Slavery was unprofitable in the North-
ern States, and in the course of time the opinions and
sentiments of the best people were arrayed against it. If
it had been profitable in the North, the people there, ac-
cording to the infirmity of our nature, might possibly have
remained unconvinced of its evils."
It is sufficient to say that at the time when our history
begins, slavery had gravitated to the South, and was, for
the most part, confined to the South; although, in the
beginning, some of the Southern colonies had opposed
and resisted the introduction of the abomination. The
colonial legislature of Virginia, for example, in 1726
undertook to check the importation of slaves by imposing
a heavy tax on the traffic; but the British Government
repealed this law, and, as Madison afterward said, " con-
stantly baffied the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to
this infernal traffic, for the avowed reason that * the slave-
trade was very advantageous to Great Britain.' " ^
The colony of Georgia, also, the year after it was char-
tered (1734), forbade by express law the introduction of
slavery, and it was not until George Whitefield, co-founder
1 Ridpath's " History of the United States," p. 487.
2 Matlack's " Antislavery Struggle," p. 29.
Note. — From 1699 to 1772 hventy-three acts were passed to arrest or
prohibit the further introduction of slaves, but all were disregarded by the
King of Great Britain. — Minor's " Institutes," p. 164.
THE SITUATION IN THE COLONIES. 5
with Wesley of Methodism, went from Georgia to England
and persuaded the trustees of the colony to allow it, that
slavery was introduced (1751). He is reported to have
said, '' I should think myself highly favored if I could pur-
chase a good number of slaves, in order to make their lives
comfortable and lay a foundation for bringing up their
posterity in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Twenty years afterward he died, leaving seventy- five
slaves in connection with his Orphan House plantation in
Georgia. For without repealing the law of 1734, the
colony had from 1751 allowed slave-traders to sail to
Savannah and sell their heathen victims to the highest
bidder. A slight resistance was kept up by the Mora-
vians, but even they finally yielded to the conviction that
African slaves might be employed in a Christian spirit,
and that their treatment in a Christian manner might
prove their change of country to be a great benefit to
them. This view was encouraged by a message from
the Moravians of the fatherland, which declared, " If you
take slaves in faith with the intention to conduct them to
Christ, the action will not be a sin, but may prove a bless-
ing."^ Possibly this view of the Moravians of Germany
was, in some measure, due to the influence of the words of
the great Reformer, Martin Luther, who wrote in the six-
teenth century, '' He that says that slavery is opposed to
Christianity is a liar." Sanctioned by such examples and
defended with such plausible arguments, it is not surpris-
ing that, little by little, the people laid aside their scruples
and finally adopted the system. In fact, it seemed equal
to the liberation of slaves for kind masters to purchase
them from heartless and cruel slave-traders.
When Methodism came upon the scene, about 1766,
under Robert Strawbridge in Maryland and Philip Em-
1 Matlack's "Antislavery Struggle," pp. 30, 31.
6 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
bury in New York, slavery was already established and
in vogue from Massachusetts to South Carolina, but par-
ticularly in the South ; and as Wesley had borne strong
testimony against it in England, so did Asbury, Garrett-
son, and others in America. But it was not until the
meeting of the conference at Baltimore in 1780 that con-
ference action was taken on the subject. It will be neces-
sary, at this point, to give a brief survey of the course of
legislation on the subject of slaveholding, so as better to
understand the situation at the critical period, in 1844.
Up to 1780 there was no written rule on the practice of
slaveholding. The following questions, propounded and
recorded at that conference, will show that at that time
slaves were held by Methodists, and even by Methodist
preachers :
Question. Ought this conference to require those traveling preachers who
hold slaves to give promises to set them free?
Answer, Yes.
Question, Do we pass our disapprobation on all our preachers who keep
slaves and advise their freedom?
Answer. Yes.
At the famous Christmas Conference held in Lovely
Lane Chapel in Baltimore in 1784, at and by which the
organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Amer-
ica was effected, a general rule, in addition to those pre-
pared by Mr. Wesley for the societies in England in 1 743,
was adopted, prohibiting *' the buying or selling the bodies
and souls of men, women, or children with the intention
of enslaving them."
Other special rules were also adopted at this conference,
"designed to extirpate this abomination from among us."
These rules were the most rigid that were ever enacted
by the General Conference of the Methodist Church in
America. They indicate the high-water mark of confer-
ence legislation against slavery. They were found, how-
EARLY LEGISLATION. 7
ever, to be too rigid; and the Discipline of 1786 marks
the beginning of a recessive movement. If, from the
beginning, non-slaveholding had been made a rigid con-
dition of entrance into the Methodist Church, that might
have worked, and all the after trouble might have been
avoided. But this was not done. Slaveholders had been
admitted — when and where and how it may not now be
possible to say — but the sensitive and excited tone of the
legislation on the subject all through this period indicates
that the church had considerable and increasing num-
bers of slaveholders. An attempt was made at the Gen-
eral Conference of 1800 to pass a resolution prohibit-
ing thereafter the admission of a slaveholder. *' Friday
morning. May i6th, Brother Snethen moved that this
General Conference do resolve that from this time no
slaveholder shall be admitted into the Methodist Epis-
copal Church;" but it seemed now too late to adopt such
a rule, for it was *' negatived." ^ Not only so, but another
rule was enacted, '* That all slaveholders asking admission
as members must be spoken to freely and faithfully by the
preacher on the subject of slavery." These two actions
revealed the vacillation of the church and the General
Conference on the subject of slaveholding. They were
hesitating over the question,
. . . Shall we shut the door
And keep it out? or shall we let it in
And see if we can get it out again?
Moreover, the subject now began to be complicated
with civil legislation. Already in the General Conference
of 1800 we begin to meet with clauses that become very
familiar in later legislation : ** Whereas the laws in two or
more of the United States pointedly prohibit the emanci-
pation of slaves;" and again, ** shall execute, if it be
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1800," p. 40.
8 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. i.
practicable, a legal emancipation of such slave or slaves,
agreeably to the laws of the State wherein they live." ^
As they had failed to make non-slaveholding a con-
dition of membership from the beginning; and as, when
fully awakened afterward to the nature and meaning of
slavery, they had even then definitely refused to introduce
non-slaveholding as a condition of membership, but, on
the contrary, made implicit provision for the continued
admission of slaveholders on condition of a talk to the
candidate by the preacher; and as conference legislation
was becoming more difficult and unmanageable by reason
of its embarrassing complications with State legislation —
they found it necessary to abandon their untenable posi-
tion, to make further concessions, and to put themselves
in line with the laws of the slaveholding States and the
crystallizing public opinion of the people in those States,
or else they would have practically to abandon them.
Hence there is a tone of increasing moderation in the
legislation of the General Conference down to 1816, when
the law known as the " Compromise Law " of the church
on the subject of slavery was passed. The action of that
conference is as follows :
Your committee find that in the South and West the civil authorities ren-
der emancipation impracticable, and they are constrained to admit that to
bring about such a change in the civil code as would favor the cause of lib-
erty is not in the power of the General Conference. They beg leave to sub-
mit the following resolution :
Resolved, That no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our
church where the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipa-
tion and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom.2
After 1 8 1 6 there was practically no change in the legis-
lation of the General Conference on the subject of slavery
until the session of 1836; but an event occurred at the
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1800," pp. 37, 44.
2 "Journal of the General Conference of 1816," p. 170,
CASE OF MR. CAPERS. g
General Conference of 1828 which showed that the mod-
erate and conciliatory view of the question had been
accepted and was generally held. At the General Con-
ference of 1824 that body instructed the bishops to choose
and appoint a representative and send him to the British
Conference at its session in 1826. At a meeting of the
bishops held in Baltimore in April, 1826, Bishop McKen-
dree and Bishop Soule had favored the appointment of
Mr. Capers, of South Carolina, while Bishops George and
Hedding gave their support to the great Dr. Wilbur Fisk.
The ground of their objection to Mr. Capers was that he
was a slaveholder. This difference of opinion led to a
postponement of the matter till the General Conference of
1828, when the subject was formally brought up in the
address of the bishops. The General Conference indorsed
the preference of Bishops McKendree and Soule, and
elected Mr. Capers over Dr. Fisk, notwithstanding the
fact that he was a slaveholder. It may be interesting to
add that Mr. Capers was received by the British Confer-
ence with cordiality and enthusiasm ; and they
Resolved, i. That the cordial thanks of this conference are due to the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America for the
appointment of their excellent representative, Mr. Capers, whose amiable
manners, devout spirit, and acceptable ministry have greatly endeared him
to the preachers now assembled, and have confirmed their feelings of respect
and attachment toward their American brethren at large.
2. That the warmest thanks of the conference are hereby presented to
Mr. Capers for the great ability, Christian spirit, and brotherly kindness with
which he has discharged the duties of his honorable mission, and that their
most fervent prayers will attend him on his return to his native country, i
The journal of the General Conference of 1836 records
a remarkable action. It is as follows :
Whereas great excitement has prevailed in this country on the subject oi
modern abolitionism, etc.,
Resolved, by the delegates of the Annual Conferences in General Confer-
1 " Life of Bishop Capers," p. 258.
lO THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
ence assembled, That they are decidedly opposed to modern abolitionism,
and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and
political relation between master and slave as it exists in the slaveholding
States of this Union, i
One hundred and thirty-seven voted in favor of this
resolution, and *' none in the opposition."
The great excitement referred to in the preamble was
an effect of the organization and operation of the New
England Antislavery Society, begun in 1832, and the
American Antislavery Society, organized in 1833. These
societies took extreme positions and precipitated wide-
spread agitation.
In 1835 the New England and New Hampshire confer-
ences organized Antislavery Societies, and an " Appeal "
was issued, signed by La Roy Sunderland and others, and
addressed to these two conferences. In the same year
appeared a *' Counter- Appeal," written by D. D. Whedon
and signed by Wilbur Fisk, Abel Stevens, Bishop Elijah
Hedding, and others. The signers of this counter-appeal
replied to the position taken in the appeal, that *' no
slaveholder is truly awakened, and that no slaveholder
can rightly be permitted a place in the Christian Church,"
by saying:
That in the primitive church at Colosse, under the apostolic eye and with
the apostolic sanction, the relation of master and slave was permitted to sub-
sist ; that there were already such in the church of Ephesus ; that the New
Testament (in Ephesians vi. 5-9 and elsewhere) enjoins obedience on the
slave as an obligation due to a present, rightful authority ; that i Timothy vi.
I, 2, presents an impregnable demonstration that slaveholding is not in all
cases and invariably sinful ; that we may not say that no slaveholder is truly
awakened ; and that it does not of itself form a ground of exclusion from the
Christian Church. 2
The counter-appeal maintained also that the Bible is
opposed to slavery as a system, and disclaimed all pur-
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1836," pp. 446, 447.
2 Matlack, pp. 87, 88.
BISHOPS' ADDRESS, 18/fi. II
pose of defending the system. What it opposed was the
position that all slaveholding is sinful and therefore should
be universally and immediately abandoned.
The address of the bishops at the General Conference
of 1840 is a notable document. It presents a calm sur-
vey of the situation, takes broad views of the jurisdictional
questions involved, and counsels moderation and justice
in and toward all sections of the church. Among other
things they say :
They have no disposition to criminate their brethren in the South who are
unavoidably connected with the institution of slavery, or to separate from
them on that account. In all enactments of the church relating to slavery a
due and respectful regard has been had to the laws of the States, never re-
quiring emancipation in contravention of civil authority, or where the laws of
the State would not allow the liberated slave to enjoy his freedom. The simple
holding or owning of slaves, without regard to circumstances, has at no period
of the existence of the church subjected the master to excommunication, l
In the reply of the bishops to the fraternal address of
the British Conference, which contained references to the
subject of slavery, they say :
In some of our States slavery exists so universally and is so closely inter-
woven with their civil institutions, that both do the laws disallow of emanci-
pation and the great body of the people (the source of laws with us) hold it
to be treasonable to set forth anything by word or deed tending that way.
Our church is extended through all the States, and as it would be wrong and
unscriptural to enact a rule of discipline in opposition to the constitution and
laws of the State on the subject, so also is it not equitable or Scriptural to
confound the position of our ministers and people (so different as they are in
different States) with respect to the moral question which slavery involves.
Under the administration of the venerated Dr. Coke this plain distinction
was once overlooked, and it was attempted to urge emancipation in all the
States ; but the attempt proved almost ruinous, and was soon abandoned by
the doctor himself. Methodism has always been, except in this single in-
stance, eminently loyal and promotive of good order, and so we desire it
may ever continue to be both in Europe and America. We conclude the
subject with the corroborating language of your noble missionary society, by
the revered and lamented Richard Watson, in their instructions to mission-
aries published in the report of 1833, as follows :
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1840," pp. 135, 136.
12 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
"As in the colonies in which you are called to labor, a great proportion of
the inhabitants are in a state of slavery, the committee most strongly call to
your remembrance what was so fully stated to you when you were accepted
as missionaries to the West Indies — that your only business is to promote
the moral and religious improvement of th» slaves to whom you may have
access, without in the least degree, in public or private, interfering with their
civil condition."
(Signed) R. R. Roberts,
Joshua Soule,
Elijah Hedding,
Jas. O. Andrew,
Beverly Waugh,
Thos. a. Morris. 1
At this same General Conference of 1840 a memorial
was presented from the official members of the West-
moreland Circuit, in Virginia, complaining that, while geo-
graphically they were subject to State laws under which
emancipation could not take place, the Baltimore Confer-
ence, to whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction they belonged,
refused to elect certain of their local preachers to orders or
to admit them into the traveling connection, because they
were slaveholders. The conclusion of the report on the
subject adopted by the conference is as follows :
In conclusion, your committee would express the deliberate opinion that
while the general rule on the subject of slavery relating to those States whose
laws admit emancipation and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom,
should be firmly and constantly enforced, the exception to the general rule,
applying to those States where emancipation is not practicable, should be
recognized with equal finnness and impa7-tiality . Therefore,
Resolved, by the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in General
Conference assembled, That, under the provisional exception of the general
rule of the church on the subject of slavery, the simple holding of slaves or
mere ownership of slave-property in States or Territories where the laws do
not admit of emancipation and permit the liberated slaves to enjoy freedom,
constitutes no legal barrier to the election or ordination of ministers to the
various grades of office known in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and cannot therefore be considered as operating any forfeiture of
right in view of such election and ordination.
1 "Journal of the General Conference of 1840," p. 155.
WITHDRAWAL OF THE WESLEYANS. 13
The action of the General Conference of 1 840 marks the
furthest hmit of concession to the views and sentiments of
the Southern section of the church. It was more than
the aboHtion wing of the church could stand. They pre-
pared to secede, and in 1842-43 they did secede; and at
a convention held in Utica, N. Y., in May, 1843, they or-
ganized the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, with
non-slaveholding as a condition of membership. Within
about a year and a half they had enrolled a total mem-
bership of fifteen thousand. This secession produced a
reaction. A great awakening occurred in the church
generally, resulting in some locaHties in Methodist con-
ventions. One of these declared that *' slaveholding is
sin," and that '* the Methodist Episcopal Church is re-
sponsible for slavery in its pale." Another one declared
that *' the only way to prevent an entire dissolution among
us, as a church, is an entire separation from the South." ^
Prior to 1843 1^0 Annual Conference was allowed to say
that all slaveholding was sin. Subsequently no form of
expression was objected to by the presiding officer of an
Annual Conference. Dr. Whedon, in the " Quarterly
Review" for October, 1865, says: "The secession of the
Wesleyans, as we believe, saved our church in 1844 from
accepting a slaveholding bishop." It was the opinion of
Bishop Thompson, expressed in 1866, that the Wesleyans
by withdrawing from the church in 1843 constrained a
development of antislavery activity in the church, which
they could not have accomplished by remaining in it.
This reaction was shown in the vigorous controversy
which was at that period carried on in the Methodist
journals of the time. North and South.
On the other hand, the legislation in the General Con-
ferences of 1836 and 1840, the defeat of the abolition
1 Matlack, p. 152.
14 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. i.
party and their subsequent secession from the church,
gave the supporters of the Southern view increasing con-
fidence in their position. So that while the secession of
the Wesleyans seemed, at the time, to afford '' general re-
lief," and did afford temporary relief, yet in fact and in
the end it had the effect to reawaken the convictions of
the one side and to strengthen those of the other. The
crisis was approaching, and soon came. All the altera-
tions of the rule, modifications of method, attempts at
reconciliation, had brought the two parts of the church no
nearer together. On the contrary, all their experiments
and efforts, all the demands of the one side and all the con-
cessions of the other, all the actions and reactions, showed
that the question was utterly unmanageable, and that they
were in reality wider apart than ever before. It seems
amazing to us that the men of '44, on both sides, did not
see that it was simply impossible to reconcile the differ-
ences and perpetuate the union, and that the best thing
would have been to make a friendly division of the church
and let each section work its own territory, pursue its own
methods, and manage its own problems. An enforced
and irritating union is incomparably worse than a friendly
separation. So it appeared even to some of the apostles
(compare Gal. ii. 9 and Acts xv. 39). An opportunity for
a peaceable separation came in the General Conference of
1844.
CHAPTER 11.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1 844.
Without the preliminary review given in the fore-
going chapter, outlining the course of events preceding the
General Conference of 1844, it would be difficult to under-
stand the situation or to comprehend the action of that
historic body. There were forebodings of evil in the
hearts of both Northern and Southern delegates as they
assembled in the city of New York, in the flowery month
of May, to attend the ninth delegated General Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in the air were
the whispered fears of an impending conflict. The Gen-
eral Conference was composed of the best men of all sec-
tions, men of really great abilities, profound convictions,
deep piety, and devotion to the church. The radicals
had gone off in 1843. The leaders of 1844 were, for the
most part, conservatives. There were Soule and Hedding
and Bangs and Olin and Morris and the Pecks and Durbin
and Hamline and Porter and Collins and Thompson and
Ames and Simpson and Cartwright and Scott ; there were
the Pierces and Capers and Paine and McFerrin and Green
and Bascom and Kavanaugh and Winans and Smith and
Andrew and Hamilton and Wightman and Early. No less
than thirteen of the delegates to that memorable body
afterward became bishops — six in the Northern Church
and seven in the Southern.
Early in the session the appeal of F. A. Harding, a mem-
ber of the Baltimore Conference, was taken up. He had
married a lady who owned a family of slaves. At the
IS
1 6 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
next session of the conference he was required by that
body to free those slaves. Failing to comply, he was
suspended till the next Annual Conference, or '* until he
gives assurance that he has taken the necessary steps to
secure their freedom." It appeared in evidence that by
the laws of Maryland the title and ownership inhered in
his wife, and that a slave could not be emancipated and
enjoy liberty in the State. It was claimed that his case
was covered by the law, and appeal was made that the
sentence of the Baltimore Conference be reversed. On
the other hand, it was maintained, that no slaveholder
had ever been a member of the Baltimore Conference;
that the offending man knew this when he entered it, and
had the fact before him when he married ; that this usage
of the conference had been insisted upon in the case of
others; that, notwithstanding the stringency of the State
law, slaves had often been manumitted and remained undis-
turbed in the State ; and as for the title, it was assumed that
he could persuade his wife to join him in the act of manu-
mission.^ When the vote was taken, the motion to reverse
the decision of the Baltimore Conference was lost, fifty-
six voting for and one hundred and seventeen against it.
To the Southern members this seemed to be requiring
compliance with the usage of the conference in viola-
tion of civil law, or, as they afterward expressed it, " en-
joining a violation of civil law as a moral duty;" and this
case might probably have precipitated the division of the
church but for a graver case of similar character which
was yet to be disposed of, namely, that of one of the
bishops, who also had come into the possession of slaves
by inheritance and marriage. The good men of both
sides saw and felt what was coming, yet they tried to
avert it — to avert the inevitable. On Tuesday, May
1 McTyeire's " History of Methodism," p. 620.
A TTEMPTS AT PA CIFICA TION. I 7
14th, Dr. Capers, of South Carolina, and Dr. Olin, of Con-
necticut, offered jointly a resolution to the effect that :
In view of the distracting agitation which has so long prevailed on the
subject of slavery and abolition, and especially in view of the difficulty under
which we labor in the present General Conference, a committee of six be ap-
pointed to confer with the bishops as to the possibility of adopting some plan,
and what, for the permanent pacification of the Church, l
Dr. Olin, though supporting this resolution, gave utter-
ance to the conviction which has already been expressed
in these pages, that further concession from either side
was not to be expected, could not be asked ; the differ-
ences were too deep to be healed ; harmony and continued
union were no longer possible. This great-souled son of
New England and South Carolina, " speaking under the
most powerful emotion and in a strain of tenderness that
moved every member of the conference," said :
It appears to me that we stand committed on this question by our prin-
ciples and views of policy, and that neither of us dare move a step from
our position. I confess I turn away from the controversy with sorrow, and
a deep feeling of apprehension that the difficulties that are upon us now
threaten to be unmanageable. I will take it upon me to say freely that I do
not see how Northern men can yield their ground, or Southern men give up
theirs. I do indeed believe that if our affairs remain in their present position
and this General Conference do not speak out clearly and distinctly on the
subject, however unpalatable it may be, we cannot go home under this dis-
tracting question without a certainty of breaking up our conferences. I look
to this measure with desire rather than with hope. With regard to our
Southern brethren — and I hold that on this question, at least, I may speak
with some confidence — if they concede what the Northern brethren wish, if
they concede that holding slaves is incompatible with holding their ministry,
they may as well go to the Rocky Mountains as to their own sunny plains.
The people would not bear it. They feel shut up to their principles on this
point. I beheve there is not a man among them that would not make every
sacrifice, and even die, if thereby he could heal this division. But if our dif-
ficulties are unmanageable, let our spirit be right. I see no way of escape. 2
And Dr. Olin was right. After a day of fasting and
prayer and four days of deliberation, the committee re-
* " Journal of the General Conference of 1844," p. 43.
2 " Debates of the General Conference of 1844," p. 55.
1 8 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
ported on May i8th that, "after a calm and deliberate
investigation of the subject submitted to their considera-
tion, they are unable to agree upon any plan of compro-
mise to reconcile the views of the Northern and Southern
Conferences." ^
On Monday, May 20th, the subject which was so
much dreaded, but which would not and could not be
let alone, was brought up, and a resolution was adopted
instructing the committee on episcopacy to ascertain the
facts in the case of Bishop Andrew and report the re-
sults of their investigation to the conference on the next
day.
On Tuesday, May 21st, the committee presented their
report, embodying a statement by Bishop Andrew himself
concerning his connection with slavery : Several years be-
fore, an old lady had bequeathed to him a girl in trust,
to be taken care of until she was nineteen years old.
Then, with her consent, she was to be sent to Liberia ; or,
in case of her refusal to go, she was to be made as free as
the laws of Georgia would permit. She refused to go to
Liberia. He derived, however, no pecuniary advantage
from her, and she was at liberty to go to a free State at
her pleasure, but the laws of Georgia would not permit
her emancipation there. In that case he was a slave-
holder without his consent.
Secondly. The mother of Bishop Andrew's first wife
left to her a negro boy. His wife died without a will, and
by the laws of Georgia the boy became Bishop Andrew's
property ; but emancipation, as in the other case, was im-
practicable. However, the bishop declared he should be
at liberty to leave the State whenever he was satisfied
that the boy could either provide for himself or would be
provided for by others.
1 " Journal of the General Conference 1844," p. 54.
THE CHARACTER OF BISHOP ANDREW, 19
Thirdly. A few months previous, he had married a
lady possessed of slaves. Shortly after his marriage,
being unwilling to become their owner himself, he had
secured them to her by a deed of trust. Consequently,
he disclaimed any legal responsibility in the premises, but
declared that his wife was unable to emancipate them in
Georgia, even if she desired to do so.
It was true, then, that one of the bishops of the church
had become a slaveholder, though certainly under very
peculiar circumstances. Nevertheless, it was a tremen-
dous matter. The personal character of Bishop James O.
Andrew was above reproach and above suspicion. Dur-
ing all those terrible ten days when the searching gaze of
the General Conference, of the whole church, and, indeed,
of the nation, was focused upon him, no flaw was found
in him ; amid the feverish excitement of that high debate
no railing accusation was brought against him.^ One who
reads his biography will find that his private life was one
of exceptional character. His piety was genuine and deep
and fervent, his humility was extraordinary, his self-sacri-
ficing devotion to the gospel and the church was apostolic,
his interest in the black people was zealous and ceaseless,
his tenderness to his slaves was parental, his family life was
even beautiful. I may be permitted to say that I began
his biography with a prejudice against him ; I finished it
with the estimate and impression just given. The great
Dr. Olin, also, who was for a time an inmate of his house
and a member of his family, bears similar testimony to the
character of Bishop Andrew. And yet Bishop Andrew
was a slaveholder. This, however, was no more against
him, per se, and apart from his official relation to the
church, than the same fact was against Dr. Olin, who was
himself a slaveholder during his residence in the South.
1 See the " Debates of the General Conference of 1844."
20 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH, [Chap. II.
But that Bishop Andrew should, in view of the history
and the exciting agitation of the slavery question in his
church, have allowed himself in any way to become con-
nected with slaveholding after he was made a bishop in
that church, seems not merely *' an indiscretion," but a
very grave and grievous error. His biographer, an in-
tense Southerner, says : ** No man of proper feeling will
say that duty required him to marry the woman he did
not prefer because a part of the church was opposed to a
slaveholding bishop ; but if he had reason to suppose that
the results which did follow would have followed, the mar-
riage should have been preceded by his resignation." If
Bishop Andrew did not know the history of the slavery
agitation in the church and country, and the attitude of
the two sections well enough to have reason for fearing
that his marrying a slave-owner would occasion serious
trouble, then his ignorance, for a man in his position, was
inexcusable. If he did know these things and was indif-
ferent to them, his indifference was more inexcusable. In
any case, his position in 1844 is not one to be envied.
While all this is true, it is equally true that the
division of the church was inevitable. The South, and
with it the Methodist Church in the South, was inextri-
cably though, as the bishops in 1840 said, unavoidably
involved in slavery ; a large part of the North, and with it
the larger part of the Methodist Church in the North, was
becoming more and more committed to resistance ; and in
the action of 1836 and 1840 the Northern brethren had
made the very last concession to the Southern, and a
strong reaction had already set in. If Bishop Andrew's
case had never come up, some other question or case like
that of Mr. Harding, would have occasioned and precipi-
tated the separation of the two sections of the church.
And yet it cannot but be regarded as exceedingly unfort-
BISHOP ANDREW'S RESIGNATION, 21
unate that the blunder of a good and great and honored
man, occupying the highest position the church could be-
stow, should have become the occasion of that separation,
and that his character and good name should be jeopard-
ized and compromised, and with it that of his church, and
thus they should be made to bear, in the eyes of the world,
the blame of that separation which was probably as much
due to one side as to the other, and still more to events
and processes and influences which neither was responsible
for and neither could control.
On Wednesday, May 2 2d, a resolution requesting Bishop
Andrew to resign was offered by Alfred Griffith and John
Davis, of the Baltimore Conference. If Bishop Andrew
had been left to himself, his prompt resignation would
have anticipated and superseded this resolution, or any
other action of the conference in his case. At Baltimore,
on his way to the conference, he had learned of the intense
excitement caused by the report that one of the bishops
of the Methodist Episcopal Church was a slaveholder.
Thereupon, ** he did resolve to resign, and so expressed
himself, both in Baltimore and New York." ^
On May 14th he wrote from New York to his daughter
as follows :
As to the General Conference, thus far it has done little else but quarrel.
Some of them are in great trouble about having a slaveholding bishop, and I
should greatly relieve them if I should resign. I would most joyfully resign,
if I did not dread the influence on the Southern Church. I shall therefore
wait patiently a while longer. The clouds are dark, but God is in the whirl-
wind and guides the storm. 2
On May i6th he wrote to his wife:
The entire delegation from the twelve slaveholding conferences has met,
and, through a committee, have earnestly protested against my resignation
under any circumstances, as inevitably destructive to the Southern Church ;
1 *' Life of Bishop Andrew," p. 340.
2 Ibid., p. 355.
22 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. ii.
and for the sake of that church I am resolved to maintain my position and
await the issue. O my own dear sweet home! the sweetest spot on this
green earth! how gladly would I spend the balance of my life in your soci-
ety ! But we must trust God and obey him.
James O. Andrew.
The action of the Southern delegates, referred to by-
Bishop Andrew, is as follows :
Whereas Bishop Andrew has signified to the delegates of the conferences
in the slaveholding States a purpose to yield to the present distressing
urgency of the brethren from the North and resign his ofhce of bishop, and
whereas, in a meeting of said delegates to consider this matter, after solemn
prayer and much deliberation, it appears to us that his resignation would in-
flict an incurable wound on the whole South and inevitably lead to division
in the church, therefore we do unanimously concur in requesting the bishop,
by all his love for the unity of the church, which his resignation will certainly
jeopardize, not to allow himself for any consideration to resign.
(Signed) L. Pierce, Chairman.
L. M. Lee, Secretary.
New York, May lo, 1844.
So far as Bishop Andrew was personally concerned, if
he had through ignorance or mistaken judgment become
the occasion of trouble, he was willing and more than will-
ing to get out of the way ; but it was too late. Resigna-
tion was now out of the question and impossible. Nor
would it have helped matters, if he had insisted on resign-
ing; for, although it might have been a temporary pacifi-
cation to the Northern men, it would have been inter-
preted by the South as enforced, and as a virtual surrender
of their rights under the law and discipline of the church,
and they would in all probability have seceded in a body.
But the resolution asking Bishop Andrew to resign was
never put to vote. It was displaced, on the next day after
its proposal, by a substitute. This, it was believed, would
be less offensive to Bishop Andrew and the Southern dele-
gates than the resolution asking for his resignation.
The substitute was offered by J. B. Finley and J. M.
Trimble, of Ohio, as follows :
THE FINLEY-TRIMBLE RESOLUTION. 23
Whereas the discipline of our church forbids the doing anything calcu-
lated to destroy our itinerant general superintendency ; and Whereas Bishop
Andrew has become connected with slavery by marriage and otherwise, and
this act having drawn after it circumstances which, in the estimation of the
General Conference, will greatly embarrass the exercise of his ofhce as an
itinerant general superintendent, if not in some places entirely prevent it ;
therefore.
Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference that he desist
from the exercise of this office so long as this impediment remains.
(Signed) J. B. Finley,
J. M. Trimble.
It was upon this resolution that the great historic de-
bate of 1844 took place. Mr. Finley, in supporting the
resolution, said:
This resolution does not impeach the character of Bishop Andrew in any
way ; and as no brother here would deny the fact that he had become con-
nected with slavery, the resolution is predicated on the principle that the act
has brought after it circumstances which would impede and prevent his circu-
lation as an itinerant general superintendent.
What do we request of Bishop Andrew in this resolution? We do not
depose him as bishop ; we only say it is the sense of this General Conference
that he ought to cease to exercise the ofhce till his embarrassment ceases. I
do not wish the bishop to resign. I will permit no man on the floor to say
that he has a warmer attachment to Bishop Andrew than I have. I love
him as a Christian, as a minister, and as a bishop. I hope the General
Conference will give him a little time, and perhaps he will by and by be able,
consistently with his interests at the South, to free himself from this incubus
of slavery, and we shall have him with us again as our beloved bishop.
The situation was singularly difficult. Perhaps no more
difficult question ever in the whole history of the Christian
Church embarrassed an ecclesiastical body. In short, it
was unmanageable. To prevent widespread disaster on
one side or the other there was but one solution, and
that the General Conference of 1844 finally reached. The
long and exhaustive debate which followed upon the reso-
lution of Mr. Finley, developed radical differences of view
between the Northern and Southern delegates concerning
fundamental questions of church polity and law, in partic-
24 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH, [Chap. ii.
ular, concerning the constitutional powers of the General
Conference, and the tenure of office of the bishops, or,
more broadly, the relation of the episcopal office to the
government of Episcopal Methodism. And the differ-
ences of view, then and there developed, continue till this
day, for the most part, to distinguish the Methodist Epis-
copal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
on these great questions.
But the long and able discussion of the situation had
developed no solution that would be satisfactory to both
sides. It had rather developed and multiplied difficulties
in the way of any settlement of the question. On Thurs-
day, May 30th, Bishop Hedding suggested that the con-
ference have no afternoon session, in order to allow the
bishops to consult together with the hope that they might
be able to ** present some plan of adjusting our present
difficulties." The suggestion was received with general and
great cordiality. Accordingly, on Friday morning, May
31st, the bishops presented the following communication:
To the General Conference of the M. E. Church :
Reverend and dear Brethren: The undersigned respectfully and
affectionately offer to your calm consideration the result of their consultation
this afternoon in regard to the unpleasant and very delicate question which
has been so long and so earnestly debated before your body. To us it is
fully apparent that a decision on this question, whether affirmatively or nega-
tively, will most extensively disturb the peace and harmony of that widely
extended brotherhood which has so effectively operated for good in the
United States of America and elsewhere during the last sixty years, in the
development of a system of active energy, of which union has always been a
main element. At this painful crisis they have unanimously concurred in
the propriety of recommending the postponement of further action in the
case of Bishop Andrew until the ensuing General Conference. Until the
cessation of the embarrassment or the expiration of the interval between the
present and the ensuing General Conference, the undersigned believe that
such a division of the work of the general superintendency might be made,
without any infraction of a constitutional principle, as would fully employ
Bishop Andrew in those sections of the church in which his presence and
services would be welcome and cordial. If the course pursued on this occa-
POSTPONEMENT SUGGESTED BY THE BISHOPS. 2$
sion by the undersigned be deemed a novel one, they persuade themselves
that their justification, in the view of all candid and peace-loving persons,
will be found in their strong desire to prevent disunion, and to promote
harmony in the church.
Very respectfully and affectionately submitted,
Joshua Soule,
Elijah Hedding,
B. Waugh,
T. A. Morris.
This suggestion of the bishops would seem a timely,
reasonable, and pacific measure to adopt, but it was in
vain. On Saturday, June ist, Bishop Hedding in open
conference withdrew his name from the paper. His rea-
sons for so doing are given by the Rev. James Porter in
an article in the ** Quarterly Review " for April, 1871 :
Abolitionists regarded this suggestion of the bishops as a most alarming
measure. Accordingly, the delegates of the New England conferences were
immediately called together, and, after due deliberation, unanimously adopted
a paper declaring, in substance, that it was their solemn conviction that if
Bishop Andrew should be left by the conference in the exercise of episcopal
functions, it would break up most of our churches in New England; and
that the only way that they could be holden together would be to secede in
a body and invite Bishop Hedding to preside over them. The proposition
was agreed in by some of our most distinguished laymen who were present,
and a committee of two was appointed to communicate this action to Bishop
Hedding. On June ist the bishop was fully informed of the aforesaid action.
He then publicly withdrew his name from the paper which he and the other
bishops had signed. 1
Thus it appears that if Bishop Andrew were left in the
exercise of his episcopal functions, even though assigned
to work in the South, the churches in New England would
go to pieces ; while, if he should be in any way molested,
the church in the South would go to pieces. However,
the address and recommendation of the bishops was, by
vote of the conference, laid on the table. The substitute
of Messrs. Finley and Trimble was then put, and was car-
ried by a vote of one hundred and ten to sixty- eight.
^ See Matlack, p. 172.
26 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
After this action, Dr. Lovick Pierce, of Georgia, gave
notice that a protest would be presented by the minority
on this vote at as early a day as practicable, to be entered
on the journal of the conference.
The language of the resolution concerning Bishop An-
drew was such that it might be construed as only advisory,
and so possibly would have been construed ; but that ques-
tion was put to the test, and that possible construction of
the resolution was effectually excluded by the action of the
conference on the next day after the resolution was adopted.
Messrs. Sheer and Sargent offered the following :
Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference that the vote of
Saturday last in the case of Bishop Andrew be understood as advisory only,
and not in the light of a judicial mandate ; and that the final disposition of
Bishop Andrew's case be postponed until the General Conference of 1848,
in conformity with the suggestion of the bishops. 1
But this resolution was laid on the table.
Events were now shaping themselves toward the end.
It was not to be expected that things should remain in
this condition ; nor did they. Nothing, so far, was settled.
Everything was exactly unsettled. The refusal of the
majority to construe the Finley resolution as advisory left
the minority to interpret it as mandatory, and this was
to them even a graver action than the original resolution
requesting Bishop Andrew to resign — in their judgment
it was a virtual suspension of him, and that without due
form of law and process of trial. Thus they knew it
would be interpreted by the mass of the church-member-
ship in the South, and they knew that wholesale disaffec-
tion and secession would follow. They felt in duty bound
to express their convictions and misgivings, to enter some
protest, and to make some effort to stand for and defend
the church in the South, in order to prevent, if possible,
* " Journal of the General Conference of 1844," p. 85.
EXTRACTS FROM THE PROTEST, 2/
its demoralization and disintegration. And will any fair-
minded man say that they did wrong and were to blame
for so doing?
In their Protest they say :
We protest against the recent act of a majority of this General Conference
as an attempt to establish a dangerous precedent subversive of the union
and stability of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and especially as placing in
jeopardy the general superintendency of the church by subjecting any bishop
at any time to the will and caprice of a majority of the General Conference,
not only without law, but in defiance of the restraints and provisions of law.
We protest against the act because we recognize in this General Conference
no right, power, or authority to suspend or depose a bishop of the church
without formal presentation of a charge or charges alleging that the bishop
to be dealt with has been guilty of the violation of some law, and also upon
conviction of such charge after due form of trial. We protest against the
act in question as a violation of the fundamental law usually known as the
Compromise Law of the church on the subject of slavery — the only law which
can be brought to bear upon the case of Bishop Andrew, and the assertion
and maintenance of which, until it is constitutionally revoked, is guaranteed
by the honor and good faith of this body as the representative assembly
of the thirty-three Annual Conferences known as contracting parties in the
premises. It is assumed, and the assumption acted upon, that expediency
may have jurisdiction even in the presence of law, the law, too, being special,
and covering the case in terms. Had Bishop Andrew been suspended
according to law after due form of trial, we would have submitted without
remonstrance, as the friends of law and order. The minority are aware that
it is affirmed by some of the majority, though denied by others, that the reso-
lution censuring and virtually suspending Bishop Andrew, as understood
by the minority, is mere matter of advice or recommendation ; but the nature
of the resolution, by fair and necessary construction, is imperative and man*
datory in form, and conveys the idea plainly that it is the judgment and will of
the conference that Bishop Andrew shall cease to exercise the office of bishop
until he shall cease to be the owner of slaves. A motion, too, to declare the
resolution advisory was promptly rejected by the majority, and in view of all
these facts and the entire proceedings in the case, we have been compelled
to consider the resolution as a mandatory judgment to the effect that Bishop
Andrew desist from the exercise of his episcopal functions. We can never
consent, while we have a plain law obviously covering an assumed offense,
that the offense shall be taken, under plea of conscience and principle, out
of the hands of the law, and be re-subjected to the conflicting opinions and
passions which originally led to a resort to law, as the only safe standard of
judgment. We do not understand how conscience and principle can attach
grave blame to action not disapproved by the law — express law, too, made
28 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. ii.
and provided in the case — without extending condemnation to the law itself
and the body from which it proceeds. Impelled by conscience and principle
to the illegal arrest of a bishop because he has incidentally, by bequest, in-
heritance, and marriage, come into the possession of slave property, in no
instance intending to possess himself of such property, how long will con-
science and principle leave other ministers, or even lay members, undisturbed
who may happen to be in the same category with Bishop Andrew? Will
assurances be given that the lawlessness of expediency, controlled, as in such
cases, as it must be, by prejudice and passion, will extend no further, that
there shall be no further curtailment of right as regards the Southern minis-
try? Yet what is the security of the South in the case?
As the Methodist Episcopal Church is now organized, and according to its
organization since 1784, the episcopacy is a coordinate branch, the executive
department proper of the government. A bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church is not a mere creature — is in no prominent sense an ofhcer — of the
General Conference. The General Conference, as such, cannot constitute a
bishop. It is true, the Annual Conferences select the bishops of the church
by the suffrage of their delegates in General Conference assembled, but the
General Conference, in its capacity of a representative body or any other in
which it exists, does not possess the power of ordination, without which a
bishop cannot be constituted. Because bishops are in part constituted by the
General Conference the power of removal does not follow. Episcopacy is
an officially consecrated station under the protection of law. The power to
appoint does not necessarily involve the power to remove ; and when the
appointing power is derivative, as in the case of the General Conference, the
power of removal does not accrue at all, unless by consent of the coordinat-
ing branches of the government, expressed by law, made and provided in the
case. When the legislature of a State appoints a judge or a senator in Con-
gress, does the judge or senator thereby become the officer or creature of the
legislature, or is he the officer or senatorial representative of the State, of
which the legislature is the mere organ, and does the power of removal fol-
low that of appointment? The answer is negative in both cases, and applies
equally to the bishops of the Methodist Episcpoal Church, who are the
officers and servants of the cJmrch, chosen by the General Conference as its
organ of action, and no right of removal accrues except as they fail to accom-
plish the aims of the church in their appointment, and then only in accord-
ance with the provisions of law. But when a bishop is suspended, or in-
formed that it is the wish or will of the General Conference that he cease to
perform the functions of bishop for doing what the law of the same body
allows him to do, and, of course, without incurring the hazard of punish-
ment or even blame, then the whole procedure becomes an outrage upon jus-
tice as well as law. Upon this theory of official tenure, the provisions of
law and the faithful performance of duty afford no security. The bishops
of the Methodist Episcopal Church are slaves, and the General Conference
their masters and holders. They are in office only at the discretion of
DECLARATION OF THE SOUTHERN DELEGATES. 29
a majority of the General Conference, without the restraints or protection
of law.i
On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 5th, the South-
ern delegates presented the following declaration, with the
purpose of eliciting conference action in the premises :
The delegates of the conferences in the slaveholding States take leave to
declare to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church that
the continued agitation on the subject of slavery and abolition in a portion of
the church, the frequent action on that subject in the General Conference,
and especially the extrajudicial proceedings against Bishop Andrew, which
resulted, on Saturday last, in the virtual suspension of him from his office as
superintendent, must produce a state of things in the South which renders a
continuance of the jurisdiction of that General Conference over these con-
ferences inconsistent with the success of the ministry in the slaveholding
States. 2
On motion of Dr. Charles Elliott this '' Declaration " was
referred to a committee of nine, among whom were Robert
Paine, Nathan Bangs, L. L. Hamline, William Winans, and
James Porter. This committee was instructed by the con-
ference :
To devise, if possible, a constitutional plan for a mutual and friendly divi-
sion of the church, provided they cannot, in their judgment, devise a plan
for an amicable adjustment of the difficulty now existing in the church on the
subject of slavery. 3
After three days of deliberation the committee pre-
sented their report, which is known as the historic *' Plan
of Separation." Its adoption was moved by Dr. Charles
Elliott, on whose motion the committee was constituted.
Their report is as follows :
The select committee of nine to consider and report on the declaration of
the delegates from the conferences of the slaveholding States, beg leave to
submit the following report :
Whereas a declaration has been presented to this General Conference,
with the signatures of fifty-one delegates of the body, from thirteen Annual
1 " Debates of the General Conference of 1844," pp. 203-211.
2 "Journal of 1844," p. 109.
3 Ibid.^ p. III.
30 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
Conferences in the slaveholding States, representing that, for various reasons
enumerated, the objects and purposes of the Christian ministry and church
organization cannot be successfully accomplished by them under the jurisdic-
tion of this General Conference as now constituted ; and
Whereas, in the event of a separation, a contingency to which the decla-
ration asks attention as not improbable, we esteem it the duty of this General
Conference to meet the emergency with Christian kindness and the strictest
equity; therefore.
Resolved, by the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in General
Conference assembled,
1st. That should the delegates from the conferences in the slaveholding
States find it necessary to unite in a distinct ecclesiastical connection, the
following rule shall be observed with regard to the Northern boundary of
such connection : All the societies, stations, and conferences adhering to the
church in the South, by a vote of a majority of the members of said societies,
stations, and conferences, shall remain under the unmolested pastoral care
of the Southern Church; and the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal
Church shall in nowise attempt to organize churches or societies within the
limits of the Church, South, nor shall they attempt to exercise any pastoral
oversight therein ; it being understood that the ministry of the South recipro-
cally observe the same rule in relation to stations, societies, and conferences
adhering, by vote of a majority, to the Methodist Episcopal Church ; pro-
vided also that this rule shall apply only to societies, stations, and confer-
ences bordering on the line of division, and not to interior charges, which
shall in all cases be left to the care of that church within whose territory they
are situated.
2d. That ministers, local and traveling, of every grade and office in the
Methodist Episcopal Church, may, as they prefer, remain in that church, or,
without blame, attach themselves to the Church, South.
3d. Resolved, by the delegates of all the Annual Conferences in General
Conference assembled. That we recommend to all the Annual Conferences,
at their first approaching sessions, to authorize a change of the Sixth Restric-
tive Rule, so that the first clause shall read thus : " They shall not appro-
priate the produce of the Book Concern, nor of the Chartered Fund, to any
purpose other than for the benefit of the traveling supernumerary, super-
annuated, and worn-out preachers, their wives, widows, and children, and
to such other purposes as may be determined upon by the votes of two thirds
of the members of the General Conference."
4th. That whenever the Annual Conferences, by a vote of three fourths
of all their members voting on the third resolution, shall have concurred in
the recommendation to alter the Sixth Restrictive Rule, the agents at New
York and Cincinnati shall, and they are hereby authorized and directed to,
deliver over to any authorized agent or appointee of the Church, South,
should one be authorized, all notes and book accounts against the ministers,
THE PLAN OF SEPARATION. 3 1
church-members, or citizens within its boundaries, with authority to collect
the same for the sole use of the Southern Church, and that said agents also
convey to the aforesaid agent or appointee of the South all the real estate,
and assign to him all the property, including presses, stock, and all right
and interest connected with the printing establishments at Charleston,
Richmond, and Nashville, which now belong to the Methodist Episcopal
Church.
5th. That when the Annual Conferences shall have approved the aforesaid
change in the Sixth Restrictive Rule, there shall be transferred to the above
agent of the Southern Church so much of the capital and produce of the
Methodist Book Concern as will, with notes, book accounts, presses, etc.,
mentioned in the last resolution, bear the same proportion to the whole
property of said Concern that the traveling preachers in the Southern Church
shall bear to all traveling ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; the
division to be made on the basis of the number of traveling preachers in the
forthcoming minutes.
6th. That the above transfer shall be in the form of annual payments of
$2500 per annum, and specifically in stock of the Book Concern, and in
Southern notes and accounts due the establishment, and accruing after the
first transfer mentioned above; and until all the payments are made the
Southern Church shall share in all the net profits of the Book Concern, in
the proportion that the amount due them, or in arrears, bears to all the
property of the Concern.
7th. That be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to act in
concert with the same number of commissioners appointed by the Southern
organization (should one be formed) to estimate the amount which will fall
due to the South by the preceding rule, and to have full powers to carry into
effect the whole arrangements proposed with regard to the division of prop-
erty, should the separation take place. And if by any means a vacancy
occurs in this Board of Commissioners, the Book Committee at New York
shall fill said vacancy.
8th. That whenever any agents of the Southern Church are clothed with
legal authority or corporate power to act in the premises, the agents at New
York are hereby authorized and directed to act in concert with said Southern
agents, so as to give the provisions of these resolutions a legally binding
force.
9th. That all the property of the Methodist Episcopal Church in meeting-
houses, parsonages, colleges, schools, conference funds, cemeteries, and of
every kind within the limits of the Southern organization, shall be forever
free from any claim set up on the part of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
so far as this resolution can be of force in the premises.
loth. That the church so formed in the South shall have a common prop-
erty in all the copyrights in possession of the Book Concern at New York
and Cincinnati, at the time of the settlement by the commissioners.
32 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
Resolved, That the bishops be respectfully requested to lay that part of
this report requiring the action of the Annual Conferences before them as
soon as possible, beginning with the New York Conference.
Robert Paine, Chairman.
New York, June 7, 1844.1
Dr. Elliott moved the adoption of the report. He said :
He had had the opportunity of examining it, and had done so narrowly.
He believed it would insure the purposes designed, and would be for the
best interests of the church. It was his firm opinion that this was a proper
course for them to pursue, in conformity with the Scriptures and the best
analogies they could collect from the ancient churches, as well as from the
best organized modern churches. All history did not furnish an example
of so large a body of Christians remaining in such close and unbroken con-
nection as the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was now found necessary to
separate this large body, for it was becoming unwieldy. He referred to the
rhurches at Antioch, at Alexandria, at Jerusalem, which, though they con-
tinued as one, were at least as distinct as the Methodist Episcopal Church
would be if the suggested separation took place. The Church of England
was one under the archbishops of Canterbury and York, connected and yet
distinct. In his own mind it had been for years perfectly clear that to this
conclusion they must eventually come. Were the question that now unhap-
pily agitated the body dead and buried, there would be good reason for pass-
ing the resolutions contained in that report. As to their representation in
the General Conference, one out of twenty was but a meager representation.
And to go on as they had done it would soon be one out of thirty. And the
body was now too large to do business advantageously. The measure con-
templated was not schism, but separation for their mutual convenience and
prosperity. 2
The report of the committee embodying the provisional
Plan of Separation was adopted by a majority ranging
from 135 to 153 on the several resolutions, against 18 to
13 voting in the negative. This was done on June 8th,
and on the second day afterward this epoch-making con-
ference, the last General Conference of the United Meth-
odism of America, adjourned.
The Plan of Separation as conceived and agreed on was
honorable to both parties. It was a healing measure, and
1 " Journal of Conference of 1844," p. 135.
2 " Debates of General Conference of 1844," p. 219.
THE MOTIVES OF THE SOUTHERN DELEGATES. 33
a fitting conclusion to the fifteenth General Conference of
United Episcopal Methodism, and the last.
From this history it will, we think, be evident to the
candid reader that the Southern delegates in 1844 did
not contend for slavery. They contended for a separate
ecclesiastical organization, in order that, secure from the
continual agitation of the slavery question, they might,
without interfering with established civil institutions and
relations, have the opportunity and privilege of giving the
gospel to the slave-owners of the South and their slaves ;
for whatever excluded them from the former excluded
them also from the latter. ** It was not for slavery, but
for the privilege of saving the slave, that our fathers
chiefly contended," said Bishop Galloway, the fraternal
delegate to the British Conference in 1892. They could
not change the situation. They had to take it as they
found it, and deal with it as best they could. They hon-
estly thought that they could best succeed in reaching
both slave-owners and slaves by giving them the gospel
as they were, without in the least interfering with their
civil relations, firmly established, as these were, through
long years of usage, sanctioned by the very Constitution
of the United States, and guarded by the most rigid State
laws. Nay, they believed that they could reach them m
no other way; but that if they undertook to abolish these
relations, or seriously to interfere with them, they would
effectually shut themselves out from all access to the
slaves or their owners. May they not have refrained
from such revolutionary efforts in the spirit of St. Paul,
who, we are told, made no interference with slavery in his
day and time, because he knew it would array society and
the world against his gospel and doom it to defeat and
failure? At least, so thought and said the Southern dele=
gates at the General Conference of 1844. They saw and
34 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
felt and acknowledged the evil and curse of slavery. For
example, Dr. Smith, of Virginia, said in the debate on the
Harding case :
I say slavery is an evil, because I feel it to be an evil. And who cannot
say the same that has trod the soil of the South? It is an evil. The Dis-
cipline declares the truth when it says, " We are as much as ever convinced
of the great evil of slavery." Yes, we say that slavery is an evil, and that
Southern people know and feel it to be an evil. Who knows how the shoe
pinches but he who wears it ? And who more than we who have been
compelled to submit to it to the present moment? So sorely did we in Vir-
ginia feel the evils of slavery and groan under them, that, from the debates
in 1 83 1 in the Virginia Legislature and the popular sentiment, expressed by
pulpit and press, no doubt was entertained that the State was about to adopt
immediate measures for its gradual extirpation. 1
These sentiments of Dr. Smith were heartily responded
to by the delegates from the South.^
He went on to say :
On the other hand, I should say that while the Discipline deprecates the
evil of slavery, it requires the members of the church within the slave States
to conform their action to the laws of those States in which they live.
Dr. McFerrin, another of the Southern leaders, said :
I never bought or sold a slave, but those which I had were family ser-
vants. I had treated them humanely, and never intended to wrong them in
any sense. In my heart I believed slavery to be an evil — more of an evil to
the master than to the slave — but under the circumstances, and in view of
what the Bible said, I did not believe it to be a ^m. per se.^
Thus, then, it was not for slavery that they contended,
but for security from molestation in preaching the gospel
to slave-owners and to slaves without running the risk of
being denied access to both classes by interfering with
existing institutions and civil relations. At least, so it
appears from the proceedings and debates of 1844.
But it was not for this alone that they contended.
1 " Debates of 1844," pp. 26, 27.
2 Ibid., p. 44.
3 " Life of McFerrin," p. 269.
CONTENTION FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW. 35
They contended also for the authority of law, for the
sanctity of the Constitution, and for the sacredness of the
rights of ministers under the Constitution and the law, as
the extracts previously quoted from the Protest show.
(See page 27 ff.) And yet this is not intended on the
part of this writer to imply any criticism of the action of
the majority in the case of Bishop Andrew. In the first
place, he committed an error in becoming connected with
slavery. Not that he offended against the written law,
but against the unwritten, higher law of charity, which
seeketh not her own, which surrenders her rights rather
than be a stumbling-block in the way of bthers. But,
having become entangled with slavery, it became abso-
lutely necessary for the General Conference to take some
action, and some immediate action in his case, in order to
save large portions of the church in the North from dis-
affection and secession, and perhaps ruin. In the second
place, they believed that they were acting in accordance
with the Constitution, as their speeches during the debate
show. What cotdd the General Conference of 1844 do, in
view of the circumstances, except what it did? It seems
to this writer that they did even more wisely than they
knew, in doing what they did. Only if, as good Bishop
Morris afterward wrote, '* the plan " which the General
Conference of 1844 devised and adopted, *' had been car-
ried out in good faith and Christian feeling on both sides,"
all the desirable ends of the division into two jurisdictions
would have been met, and *' it would scarcely have been
felt any more than the division of an Annual Conference."
As to the power of the General Conference to authorize
or provide for the separation of a part of the church, there
was a distinct precedent in the action of the General Con-
ference of 1820.
The operations of the Methodist Episcopal Church and
36 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ii.
of the missionaries of the British Wesleyan Conference ex-
tended over the same territory in the provinces of Upper
and Lower Canada. Hence there were frequent colli-
sions and much friction. In 1820, on account of many
and urgent memorials received from the Canadian socie-
ties, the General Conference empowered the bishops " to
negotiate with the British Conference respecting Lower
Canada in the way and manner they shall see fit," and, if
possible, to send a delegate to England for the purpose.
The Rev. John Emory was appointed, and in their letter
of official instructions to him the bishops say :
We are of opinion that the most effectual means to prevent collisions in
future will be to establish a specific line by which our field of labor shall be
bounded on one side and the British missionaries on the other. With this
view you are at liberty to stipulate that our preachers shall confine their
labors in Canada to the Upper Province, provided the British missionaries
will confine theirs to the Lower, i
Mr. Emory succeeded in effecting this arrangement with
the British Conference, and accordingly Bishop McKen-
dree addressed to the private and official members in
Lower Canada a circular letter, dated October 16, 1820:
It has been agreed that our British brethren shall supply the Lower
Provinces and our preachers the Upper. It becomes our duty, therefore, to
inform you of this agreement, and to advise you, in the most affectionate and
earnest manner, to put yourselves and your chapels under the care of our
British brethren, as their societies and chapels in the Upper Province will
be put under our care. . . . This communication, we confess, is not made
without pain. But necessity is laid upon us. It is a peace-offering. For-
give, therefore, our seeming to give you up.
Accordingly, a committee of three preachers from each
connection met at Montreal February 15, 1821, and fixed
the time and manner for delivering up the several charges
which were to be relinquished on both sides.
Thus the General Conference empowered the bishops
1 Dr. Emory's " Life of Bishop Emory," pp. 93, 94.
THE CANADA PRECEDENT OF 1820. 37
and the bishops empowered Mr. Emory, and Mr. Emory
contracted with the British Conference to surrender to
that ecclesiastical jurisdiction a portion of the membership
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the contract was
faithfully executed. (See Dr. Tigert's " Constitutional
History of American Methodism.")
This was arranged for and consummated long before
the theory of a ** compact " between the Methodists of
Canada and the Methodist Episcopal Church was invented.
That theory was hit upon to obviate a difficulty which oc-
curred to the delegates of the General Conference of 1828 ;
but in 1820 the difficulty had not been thought of.
It did not occur to Bishop McKendree that there was
any violation or disregard of the constitution in the action
of the General Conference of 1820 in setting off the charges
of Lower Canada and surrendering them to another and a
foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, though it was done with-
out their request, without their consent, without even con-
sulting them. Indeed Bishop McKendree was the chief
agent in effecting the arrangement. And no man in the
history of American Methodism understood the constitution
of the church and the powers of the General Conference
better than William McKendree, or was more conscien-
tiously and consistently jealous than he of any usurpation
of the one or infraction of the other.
CHAPTER III.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST"'ePISCOPAL
CHURCH, SOUTH,
The General Conference had made provision for the
separation of the Southern conferences and their erection
into a distinct ecclesiastical connection, on condition that
those conferences should find a severance of their jurisdic-
tional connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church
necessary. In order to ascertain the view of the Southern
conferences on the necessity of separation, the delegates
of those conferences thought it advisable to meet together
before leaving New York, and hold a consultation. In
order to promote uniformity of action in the premises
they submitted to the conferences a plan for procuring
the judgment of the church in the slaveholding States as
to the necessity of organizing a Southern division of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and
the best way of effecting such an organization should it
be deemed necessary. That plan was to hold a conven-
tion at Louisville, Ky., beginning May i, 1845, ^^^ com-
posed of delegates from the Southern conferences in the
ratio of one for every eleven members. These confer-
ences were to instruct their delegates to the proposed
convention on the points on which action was contem-
plated, conforming their instructions, as far as possible, to
the opinions and wishes of the membership within their
several conference bounds. They also issued an address
to the ministers and members of the Southern conferences
38
ADDRESS OF THE SOUTHERN DELEGATES. 39
" conveying authentic information of the provisional Plan
of Separation, under which reHef in a regular way could
be obtained from the Northern jurisdiction, if they judged
it necessary." They counseled moderation and forbear-
ance. They declared that the separation proposed was not
schism, as Dr. Elliott also had said in his speech advo-
cating the plan. They declared that they " have clung to
the cherished unity of the church with a firmness of pur-
pose and a force of feeHng which nothing but invincible
necessity could subdue. If, however, nominal unity must
coexist with unceasing strife and alienated feeling, what is
likely to be gained by its perpetuation? Disposed, how-
ever, to defer to the judgment of the church, we leave this
subject with you. The plan does not decide that division
shall take place, but simply provides that it may, if it be
found necessary. Of this necessity you are to be the
judges after a careful survey and comparison of all the
reasons for and against it. Our first and most direct
object has been to bring it fully before you, and, giving
you an opportunity to judge and determine for your-
selves, await your decision."
The Kentucky Conference was the first in the Southern
division of the church to meet after the adjournment of
the General Conference. It convened on September 11,
1844, and adopted, among others, the following resolu-
tions, with but one dissenting voice :
Resolved, i. That it is the deliberate judgment of this conference that the
action of the late General Conference, in the case of Bishop Andrew and of
the Rev. F. A. Harding, is not sustained by the Discipline of the church,
and that we consider those proceedings as constituting a highly dangerous
precedent.
2. That we deeply regret the prospect of division growing out of those
proceedings.
3. That we approve the holding a convention of delegates in Louisville
next May agreeably to the recommendation of the Southern and South-
western delegates in the late General Conference.
40 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. hi.
4. That unless we can be assured that the rights of our ministry and
membership can be effectually secured according to the Discipline against
future aggressions, and reparation be made for past injury, we shall deem
the contemplated division unavoidable.
5. That we approve the course of our delegates in the late General Con-
ference, and tender them our thanks for their faithful and independent dis-
charge of duty in a trying crisis.
6. That we respectfully invite the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church who may feel disposed to do so, to be in attendance at the contem-
plated convention.
7. That we appoint Friday preceding the day for the meeting of the con-
vention, as a day of fasting and prayer for the blessing of Almighty God on
the said convention.
Resolutions to the same effect, and covering the same
ground, were passed at the sessions of the Missouri, Hol-
ston, Tennessee, Memphis, Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia,
North CaroHna, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas,
Alabama, and Indian Mission conferences. The resolu-
tions passed by some of these conferences concerning the
unconditional necessity of separation were much stronger
than those of the Kentucky Conference, but in other re-
spects they were very similar. Great unanimity prevailed
in respect to all the points touched upon in the foregoing
resolutions. Indeed, it has been said by one who took
part in those proceedings, and who with wide opportu-
nities made a study of this whole history, that ** those who
will take the trouble to read the utterances of these con-
ferences will find that the history of the world does not
offer a parallel to the unanimity of sentiment, thought,
and purpose which they exhibited on a subject of such
momentous importance. Their course was taken reluct-
antly, sadly, but firmly, and for the glory of God."^
The meeting of the delegates from the Southern con-
ferences in convention at Louisville, in May, 1845, was
looked to with great and general interest. It is said that
1 Myers' " Disruption of the Methodist Episcopal Church."
THE LOUISVILLE CONVENTION. 4 1
hundreds of ministers and members attended the con-
vention to witness the progress and result of its delib-
erations, and the entire church, North and South, awaited
with painful solicitude the final issue;
There were between ninety-five and a hundred dele-
gates in attendance from the conferences enumerated
above. Bishops Soule, Andrew, and Morris were pres-
ent, and were requested by the convention to pr,eside in
turn, but Bishop Morris declined. Dr. Lovick Pierce was
elected temporary president, and opened the convention
with a Scripture lesson and hymn, and a ** suitable and
impressive prayer to the throne of grace." Thomas O.
Summers was elected secretary, and Thomas N. Ralston
assistant. On the morning of the second day of the con-
vention a notable address was delivered by the venerable
Bishop Soule. It will be remembered that he was the
Senior Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Amer-
ica. He was from the extreme North. He had been
born and reared in Maine, and was, at the time referred
to, a citizen of Ohio. It was he who, at the age of twenty-
seven, had drafted the constitution of the church. It was
he who, on a former occasion, when the constitution was
in peril, more than any other man had saved it; and it
was he who, though a Northern man and never a pro-
slavery man, undertook the defense of the constitution in
the great controversy that agitated the General Confer-
ence of 1844. He said to the convention:
I rise on the present occasion under the influence of feelings more solemn
and impressive than I recollect ever to have experienced before.
I am deeply impressed with a conviction of the important results of your
deliberations and decisions in relation to that numerous body of Christians
and Christian ministers you here represent and to the country at large.
When it is recollected that it is not only for yourselves and the present min-
istry and membership of the conferences you represent, that you are assem-
bled here, but that millions of the present race and generations yet unborn
42 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. hi.
may be affected in their most essential interests by the result of your delib-
erations, it will occur to you how important it is that you should do all things
as in the immediate presence of God. The opinion which I formed at the
close of the late General Conference, that the proceedings of that body
would result in a division of the church, was not induced by the impulse of
excitement, but was predicated of principles and facts after the most deliberate
and mature consideration. And however deeply I have regretted such result,
yet, believing it to be inevitable, my efforts have been made, not to prevent
it, but rather that it might be attended with the least injury and the greatest
amount of good which the case would admit. I was not alone in this
opinion. A number of aged and influential ministers entertained the same
views, and, indeed, it is not easy to see how any one acquainted with the
facts in the case and the relative position of the North and South could
arrive at any other conclusion. Nothing has transpired since the close of
the General Conference to change the opinion I then formed, but subsequent
events have rather confirmed it. In the Southern conferences which I have
attended, I do not recollect that there has been a dissenting voice with respect
to the necessity of a separate organization, and although their ofificial acts in
deciding the important question have been marked with that clearness and
decision which should afford satisfactory evidence that they acted under a
solemn conviction of duty to Christ and to the people of their charge, they
have been equally distinguished by moderation and candor. For myself, I
stand upon the basis of Methodism as contained in the Discipline, and from
it I intend never to be removed.
On Monday, May 5 th, the following resolution was
offered by Dr. Wm. A. Smith and Dr. Lovick Pierce :
Resolved, by the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in the South-
ern and Southwestern States in General Convention assembled :
That we cannot sanction the action of the late General Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church on the subject of slavery by remaining under
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of that body without deep and lasting injury to
the interests of the church and the country ; we therefore hereby instruct the
committee on organization that, if upon a careful examination of the whole
subject they find that there is no reasonable ground to hope that the Northern
majority will recede from their position and give some safe guarantee for the
future security of our civil and ecclesiastical rights, they report in favor of a
separation from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the said General Conference.
After a lengthened discussion of this resolution, extend-
ing through nine days, it was, on May 14th, adopted, with
one dissenting vote.
ORGANIZATION COMPLETED. 43
On Saturday, May 1 7th, the report of the committee
on organization was taken up and adopted, as follows :
Be it resolved, by the delegates of the several Annual Conferences of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the slaveholding States, in General Conven-
tion assembled, that it is right, expedient, and necessary to erect the Annual
Conferences represented in this convention into a distinct ecclesiastical con-
nection, separate from the jurisdiction of the General Conference of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church as at present constituted; and accordingly, we, the
delegates of said Annual Conferences, acting under the provisional Plan
of Separation adopted by the General Conference of 1844, do solemnly
declare the jurisdiction hitherto exercised over said Annual Conferences by
the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, entirely dissolved ;
and that said Annual Conferences shall be and they hereby are constituted a
separate ecclesiastical connection under the provisional Plan of Separation
aforesaid and based upon the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
comprehending the doctrines and entire moral, ecclesiastical, and economical
rules and regulations of said Discipline, except, only, in so far as verbal
alterations may be necessary to a distinct organization, and to be known by
the style and title of The Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
This resolution was adopted by a vote of ninety-four
yeas against three nays. They appointed the first Gen-
eral Conference to meet on the first day of May, 1846,
in the city of Petersburg, Va., and thenceforward in the
month of April or May, once in four years, successively.
After adopting various other measures appropriate to
their circumstances, on May 19th the convention ^'Re-
solved, That we devoutly acknowledge the superintending
providence of God over this convention, and rejoice in the
harmony which has prevailed in all its deliberations and
decisions," and adjourned; and the organization of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was completed.
In the interval before the General Conference of 1846
the various Annual Conferences, with great unanimity, ap-
proved the acts of the Louisville Convention.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE METH-
ODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH.
The first General Conference of the Methodist Episco^
pal Church, South, assembled by appointment of the Louis-
ville Convention in the Union Street Church in Petersburg,
Va., on the first day of May, 1846. There were eighty-
seven delegates, from sixteen Annual Conferences. These
men came together in this first general representative
assembly of their church with solemn impressions of the
gravity of their responsibility, on the one hand, and on the
other, with a steady confidence in God and the rightness
of their course, and high hopes for the future. Among
them were such men as the venerable Senior Bishop of
the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, Joshua Soule,
the venerable Lovick Pierce, John B. McFerrin, H. B.
Bascom, William Winans, Robert Paine, A. L. P. Green,
Jonathan Stamper, John Early, William Capers, George F.
Pierce, William M. Wightman, Jefferson Hamilton, Thomas
O. Summers, H. H. Kavanaugh, Fountain E. Pitts. Of
these, seven afterward became bishops in the church, and
every one of them honored the high position.
The conference was called to order by Dr. Winans, of
Mississippi, and John Early was elected temporary chair-
man ; for, though Bishop Soule was present, he had not
yet formally declared his adherence to the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South. This he did, however, on the
44
BISHOP SOULE'S COMMUNICATION. 45
second day of the conference, In the following formal
communication :
Petersburg, Va., May 2, 1846.
Reverend and Dear Brethren : I consider your body as now organ-
ized as the consummation of the organization of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, in conformity to the Plan of Separation adopted by the Gen-
eral Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844. The organiza-
tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, being thus completed in the
organization of the General Conference with a constitutional president, the
time has arrived when it is proper for me to announce my position. Sus-
taining no relation to one Annual Conference which I did not sustain to
every other, and considering the General Conference as the proper judicatory
to which my communication should be made, I have declined making this
announcement until the present time ; and now, acting with strict regard to
the Plan of Separation and under a solemn conviction of duty, I formally
declare my adherence to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. And if
the conference receive me in my present relation to the church, I am ready
to serve them according to the best of my ability. In conclusion, I indulge
the joyful assurance that, although separated from our Northern brethren by
a distinct conference jurisdiction, we shall never cease to treat them as breth-
ren beloved, and cultivate those principles and affections which constitute
the essential unity of the Church of Christ.
Joshua Soule.
From this time, Bishop Soule and Bishop Andrew, who
arrived after the opening, presided in turn over the daily
sessions of the conference. The organization of the body
was effected, the usual committees were appointed, and
soon they were launched upon the current of routine
General Conference proceedings. These men were not
novices in the conduct of a Methodist General Confer-
ence. They were old hands at the business, and among
them were some of the ablest and most venerable men of
the Methodism of America. At this very first session of
the General Conference of the church, her representatives,
while recognizing that they had a special call to a peculiar
and difficult mission work in their own territory, did not
fail to cast their glance abroad and to acknowledge their
obligation to give the gospel, as far as in them lay, to
46 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. iv.
unevangelized peoples beyond the pale of Christendom.
They strove to follow in the succession of him who said,
" The field is the world," of him who declared himself
" debtor to Greeks and to barbarians," and of him who
said, ''The world is my parish." Accordingly, early in
the session they took measures for enterprising a mission
to China. For the furtherance of this and similar objects,
they constituted and organized a permanent Board of
Missions.
Educated from of old to know the need and value of
church literature, and wishing from the very start to
secure independent facilities of their own for furnishing
it, they provided for a Book Concern. However, this
arrangement gave place to another, better suited to the
condition of the church at the time, and this was the ap-
pointment of an agent to provide for a supply of books for
the church by contracting for such books where they could
be obtained on the best terms. He was to cause these
books to be kept on hand at Louisville, Richmond, and
Charleston, subject to the orders of the itinerant preachers
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. John Early
was elected agent. They projected three weekly religious
papers, to be published, one in Louisville, one in Richmond,
and one in Charleston. They provided for the publication
of a Sunday-school journal, and established a " Quarterly
Review," of which H. B. Bascom was elected editor. John
B. McFerrin was elected editor of the " Nashville Christian
Advocate," W. M. Wightman of the '"* Southern Christian
Advocate " at Charleston, with Thomas O. Summers as
assistant, and LeRoy M. Lee was elected editor of the
** Richmond Christian Advocate."
The committee on episcopacy recommended the election
of two additional bishops, and the conference concurred.
Bishop Soule and Dr. Lovick Pierce led the conference in
DR. CAPERS AND DR. PAINE BISHOPS. 47
prayer for the divine direction in the selection of their
superintendents; and it is not too much to say that the
event justified their confidence in the divine guidance.
On the second ballot William Capers, of South Carolina,
and Robert Paine, of Tennessee, were elected bishops of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The former of
these, it will be remembered, was elected by the General
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1828,
as their representative to the British Conference, and had
discharged his delicate duties with such acceptability and
grace as to elicit from that distinguished body resolutions
of thanks to the church for sending him, and to himself
'' for the great ability, Christian spirit, and brotherly kind-
ness with which he had discharged the duties of his honor-
able mission." In 1840 he had been elected one of the
general missionary secretaries of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. But a distinction, higher and nobler than any of
these, was the fact that in 1829, after having served long
and faithfully as a preacher to and pastor of thousands of
slaves in connection with his white congregations, he es-
tablished missions to the plantation slaves, and was him-
self appointed superintendent of these missions. At the
time of his death there were, as the product of this move-
ment, inaugurated by him, twenty-six mission stations in
South Carolina alone, on which were employed thirty-two
preachers, and the number of church-members at these
stations was 11,546.
Dr. Robert Paine was, at the General Conference of
1844, chairman of the general committee on episcopacy,
and chairman, as well, of the famous committee of nine
who drew up the Plan of Separation. He had been at the
time of his election as bishop for sixteen years and still
was president of LaGrange College in Alabama. These
two tried and honored men, then, were the first choice of
48 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH, [Chap. iv.
the Southern Church for the high and responsible office of
general superintendent. They were consecrated at noon
on Thursday, May 14th, in the Washington Street Church.
It will not be amiss to quote a short extract from a letter
written by Bishop Capers to his wife on that day :
To-day I feel that we are all on the altar together. And oh! have I not
felt that the altar sanctifieth the gift? I have only to cast all my care on
God, all my multiform unworthiness on his divine goodness and condescen-
sion in Christ, and go on. I have so reverenced the ofifice and w^ork of a
bishop, and the bishops themselves, that that very thing embarrasses me. I
cannot feel myself a bishop, but, thank God ! I feel what is better — an abid-
ing sense of being accepted of him in an humble and sincere devotion of
myself without stint to his service.
The General Conference of 1846 made no essential
change in the original Discipline. In fact, they declare
that the changes made by them were fewer in number
and less important than those of any General Conference
since 1792. On the subject of slavery the section and
rule were left unchanged; only a paragraph was added
explaining that the section was understood by the M. E.
Church, South, in the sense of the declarations made by
the General Conferences of 1836 and 1840. The interests
of the slave population received special attention. The
report of the committee on missions adopted by the con-
ference has these words : " The duty of giving the gospel
to the slave population is binding on all according to their
ability, and it is binding on all, as they are severally able,
with the same force of indispensable obligation." This
report occupies three pages of the conference journal.^
Three new conferences, in addition to the original six-
teen, were constituted by the General Conference of 1846
— the Louisville, the St. Louis, and the Louisiana.
It was ordered that three commissioners be appointed,
1 See "Journal of the General Conference of 1846," pp. 65-67.
FRATERNAL DELEGATE TO M. E. CHURCH. 49
in accordance with the Plan of Separation, to act in con-
cert with commissioners appointed for the Methodist Epis-
copal Church " concerning our interest in the Book Con-
cern." These commissioners were H. B. Bascom, A. L. P.
Green, and S. A. Latta. And ** should no settlement be
eflfected before 1848, said commissioners were to have
authority to attend the General Conference of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, to settle and adjust all questions
involving property or funds which may be pending be-
tween the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South. "^
Though the Southern conferences had thus consum-
mated their separation from the Methodist Episcopal
Church, as provided for in 1844, yet, as they had all
along declared, they entertained feelings of the most
cordial good-will and brotherly kindness toward their
brethren of the Northern conferences, and they neither
forgot nor neglected to give practical expression to those
feelings in their official capacity as a General Conference.
Accordingly, on Saturday, May 23d, it was by a rising
and unanimous vote
Resolved, That Dr. Lovick Pierce be and is hereby delegated to visit the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to be held in Pitts-
burg May, 1848, to tender to that body the Christian regards and fraternal
salutations of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South.
The Statistics for the year 1 846 are as follows :
Traveling preachers i>5^
Local preachers 2,833
White members 327,284
Colored members 124,961
Indian members 2,972
Total 459,569
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1846," p. 97.
^O THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. iv.
St. Louis was selected as the place for the meeting of
the General Conference of 1850. "The benediction was
solemnly pronounced by the venerable senior superintend-
ent, Bishop Soule," and the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, was launched upon its providential and useful
career.
CHAPTER V.
OPPOSITION AND FRICTION.
While among the Southern conferences there was a
practical unanimity of sentiment and action in favor of
the Louisville Convention and in indorsement of its work,
it was not so in the North. Though the Plan of Separa-
tion had been adopted by an overwhelming majority of
the General Conference of 1844, there came afterward a
reaction, and some of the men who voted for it and who
advocated it, drew back from it when they realized that
there was a probability of its being carried into effect.
Even before the meeting of the Louisville Convention
measures were taken to counteract its influence and fore-
stall its probable conclusion. In particular, the editors of
the two leading papers of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
one of whom had moved the adoption of the plan and
then advocated it in a strong speech, labored to impress
the public mind unfavorably with regard to the conven-
tion. In the South, however, the question was considered
as finally settled, and the general desire was to cultivate
peace with the Northern portion of the church. This
feeling was reciprocated on the part of many in the
North, and expressed by some of the church papers.
The editors of the two leading church papers, however,
after the convention, became more pronounced and vigor-
ous in their opposition than before, claiming and holding
that the Southern organization was a secession if not a
schism of the worst sort, that the Louisville Convention
51
52 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. v.
was not held In accordance with the Plan of Separation,
that the plan itself was unconstitutional and void. The
venerable Bishop Soule was attacked and charged with
being the prime agent in the whole movement. This im-
plication and accusation of him in the leading papers led
to such a complication and embarrassment in regard to
the holding of conferences that it was thought best, in July,
1845, to call a meeting of the bishops to determine what
should be done. Bishops Hedding, Waugh, Morris, and
Janes were present. It was decided that it would be best
for them to form a new plan of episcopal visitation, not
including the Southern conferences. In addition to this,
they adopted the following resolution governing their own
administration :
Resolved^ That the plan reported by a select committee of nine at the last
General Conference, and adopted by that body, in regard to a distinct ecclesi-
astical connection, should such a course be found necessary by the Annual
Conferences in the slaveholding States, is regarded by us as of binding obli-
gation in the premises, so far as our own administration is concerned.
Edmund S. Janes, Secretary.
When this wise, conservative, and just action of the
bishops became known^ it had a decided influence in
quieting matters and in settling the public mind.
These sound and conservative views were ably seconded
by men of the highest standing in the Northern Connec-
tion. Dr. Bangs and Dr. Olin contended that the faith
and honor of the church were deeply concerned in carry-
ing out the Plan of Separation, and thereby greatly en-
deared themselves to the lovers of peace, both North and
South. The church papers, too, with the exceptions men-
tioned, sanctioned the action of the bishops and took the
same honorable ground.^
Bishop Morris had occasion, on being invited by a
I " History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South," p. 238.
BISHOP MORRIS'S LETTER. 53
minority of the Missouri Conference to take charge of
them and preside over them in a conference capacity, to
write a letter in which he expounds at greater length his
views of the Plan of Separation and its operation. The
letter is dated Burlington, la., September 8, 1845. He
closes with these words :
In the meantime there is much more bad feeling indulged in respecting
the separation than there is any necessity for. If the Plan of Separation' had
been carried out in good faith and Christian feeling on both sides, it would
scarcely have been felt any more than the division of an Annual Conference.
It need not destroy confidence or embarrass the work, if the business be
managed in the spirit of Christ. I trust the time is not far distant when the
brethren, North and South, will cease their hostilities and betake themselves
to their prayers and other appropriate duties in earnest. Then, and not till
then, may we expect the Lord to bless us as in former days.
Thos. a. Morris.
The conciliatory action of the bishops, however, and the
wise and pacific words of Bishop Morris did not put an
end to the reaction which was going on in the North. The
Annual Conferences, though giving a numerical majority
for the change of the Sixth Restrictive Rule, did not give
the requisite three-fourths vote, and the rule was not
changed. The numbers are as follows :
For changing the rule in the Northern conferences I>i64
In the Southern conferences 971
Total 2,135
Against changing the rule i}070
This, of course, was irritating to the South. The South
did and said things that were irritating to the North. The
attempts to adjust the difficulties of the border conferences
developed a great deal of friction and ill feeling. It was
charged that there were infractions of the plan on both
sides, and perhaps it was true. It was a time of political
agitation, excitement, and animosity preceding and fol-
lowing the annexation of Texas, as a slave State, to the
54 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. v.
United States. The culminating point was reached when
the General Conference of the M. E. Church in Pittsburg
in 1848, by a very large majority, declared the Plan of
Separation null and void.
This General Conference also refused to receive Dr.
Lovick Pierce in his official relation as fraternal delegate
from the M. E. Church, South, though extending to him
" all personal courtesies." Their action was as follows:
Whereas there are serious questions and difficulties existing between the
M. E. Church and the M. E. Church, South,
Resolved, That while we tender to Rev. Dr. Pierce all personal courtesies
and invite him to attend our sessions, the General Conference does not con-
sider it proper, at present, to enter into fraternal relations with the M. E.
Church, South.
The commissioners of the Southern Church, appointed
to confer with the authorities of the M. E. Church con-
cerning the adjustment of all matters pertaining to the
division of the church property and funds, were present
at the General Conference of 1848, and reported them-
selves ready for negotiations. The conference replied
that they had no authority independently of the Annual
Conference to enter into arbitration with the commis-
sioners of the M. E. Church, South, in relation to the
claims set up by them to a division of the vested funds of
the M. E. Church.
As to the rejection of the fraternal delegate of the M. E.
Church, South, at Pittsburg, in 1848, it may be said that
the General Conference at Brooklyn in 1872 practically
reversed that by their action in appointing fraternal del-
egates to the Southern General Conference at Louisville
in 1874. Before leaving the city of Pittsburg in 1848, the
rejected Southern delegate sent a communication to the
General Conference of the M. E. Church, saying :
The M. E. Church, South, can never renew the offer of fraternal relations
between the two great bodies of Wesleyan Methodists in the United States ;
LATER ACTION OF M. E. CHURCH. 55
but the proposition can be renewed at any time, either now or hereafter, by
the M. E. Church, and if ever made upon the basis of the Plan of Separation
as adopted by the General Conference of 1844, the Church, South, will cor-
dially entertain the proposition.
This action of their delegate was approved by the Gen-
eral Conference of the Southern Church in 1850 in an ex-
plicit and emphatic resolution.
The General Conference of the M. E. Church in May,
1872, after various preliminary communications and ne-
gotiations, appointed a delegation of two distinguished
ministers and one distinguished layman to convey their
*' fraternal greetings to the General Conference of the
M. E. Church, South," to convene in May, 1874, and they
were '* received with pleasure."
It may be said that the Methodist Episcopal Church
implicitly nullified their nullification of the Plan of Sepa-
ration by sending fraternal delegates after the declaration
contained in the final communication of the rejected South-
ern delegate in 1848, as well as by the declarations of the
Cape May Commission in August, 1876.
As has been said, the General Conference of the M. E.
Church in 1848 replied to the Commissioners of the South-
ern Church that they had no power to authorize or nego-
tiate a division of the property with the Southern Church,
without the concurrent vote of the Annual Conferences.
This the Annual Conferences had refused to give. The
General Conference proposed, however, to submit once
more to the Annual Conferences a recommendation to
change the Sixth Restrictive Rule so as to allow the claim
of the Southern Church to be submitted to arbitration. The
commissioners of the Southern Church saw no reason to
believe that the same Annual Conferences that had once
refused to change the Restrictive Rule in their favor, would
do so now. Indeed, it was practically certain that, if with
56 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. v.
the vote of the Southern Conferences, as in the former
case,i the resulting vote was against changing the Re-
strictive Rule, it would be much more so without them.
Believing in the justice of their claim, and, still more, desir-
ing a judicial and moral vindication, they entered suit in
1849, in the United States Circuit Courts of New York and
Ohio, for the recovery of their pro rata portion of the
property in the cities of New York and Cincinnati. It is
a sad history, but history it is.
1 See p. 53.
CHAPTER VI.
SECOND GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE M. E. CHURCH,
SOUTH.
The second General Conference of the M. E. Church,
South, was held in the year 1850, in Centenary Church,
in the city of St. Louis. It had been a stormy quadren-
nium. The church had, nevertheless, passed through it
without suffering serious damage or discouragement. To
be sure, it was a matter of unceasing regret that they
had not been able to live on terms of Christian and
fraternal communion with the other portion of the great
M. E. Church of which they had once been a part. They
labored under the double disadvantage of separation from
the fellowship of their former brethren and proscription
by them, and of exclusion from participation in the mate-
rial resources which through half a century and more their
united efforts, gifts, and sacrifices had gathered together.
But they had not labored altogether in vain. There had
been an increase of 48,236 white and 10,633 colored mem-
bers. They had now a total membership of over half a
million, or, in exact figures, 520,256; an increase of 60,685
during the quadrennium.
The address of the bishops calls attention to the state
and needs of the church, to the trials and tribulations of
the past four years, and to the work already accomplished,
as well as to the expanding opportunities and increasing
responsibilities of the church for the time to come.
In 1848, two missionaries had been appointed and sent
57
58 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. vi.
out by the bishops to China — Rev. Benjamin Jenkins and
Rev. Charles Taylor, M.D., both of the South CaroHna
Conference. They had begun their work in the great
city of Shanghai. They had purchased a lot and erected
missionary residences and a church in that city, and were
preaching the gospel.
The work of the church among the Indians had been
annually enlarging in extent and increasing in interest.
The number of Indian members had increased from 2972
in 1846 to 3487 in 1850.
The missions to the slave population of the Southern
plantations continued, in a very eminent degree, to share
the sympathies of the church and the blessing of God.
The Southern Church recognized this as their special
mission. To it they felt themselves especially called,
and they felt and confessed that *' woe would be to the
church, if they neglected it." As the result of their
efforts among this *' servile progeny of Ham," they had
added nearly 11,000 of them to the roll of the sons of
God.
In 1848, California was ceded to the United States, and
soon afterward followed the discovery of gold in that dis-
tant and unknown territory. The excitement produced
throughout the country by this event was intense, and
thousands of people from all quarters flocked thither to
find their fortune in that favored land. It was filling up
with a rapidity perhaps unequaled in the history of the
world. The bishops of the Southern Church, feeling that
they shared in the responsibility of leavening this mass of
humanity with the gospel, and urged by Southern emi-
grants to California, judged it their '' duty to send mis-
sionaries to unfurl their banner in that distant and inter-
esting portion of the great republic." Accordingly, they
appointed Rev. Dr. Boring and Rev. A. M. Wynn, of
THE PROPERTY QUESTION. 59
Georgia, and Rev. W. D. Pollock, of St. Louis, as mission-
aries to California. They sailed for San Francisco by way
of Panama in February, 1850, well supplied with standard
Methodist literature, Sunday-school publications, and copies
of the Bible, furnished by the American Bible Society.
** Their progress exceeded their own expectations." Cir-
cuits were formed and members enrolled and classed, and
though, in the absence of pastors, much of the work pro-
jected fell through, by and by *' the church moved up to
this sudden demand, and California was supplied with
preachers as well as gold-diggers."
The commissioners, appointed to negotiate with the
authorities of the M. E. Church concerning the division
of the property, reported to the General Conference of
1850 the action of the General Conference of the M. E.
Church at Pittsburg in the premises, and their own subse-
quent appHcartton to the civil courts for the adjustment of
the claim, and were instructed to prosecute the claim until
the final decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States was rendered in the suits then pending. In the
suit brought in New York the case was argued by D.
Lord and Reverdy Johnson for the claimants, and by the
able and distinguished Rufus Choate, G. Wood, and E. L.
Fancher, afterward a Cape May commissioner, for the
defendants. The opinion of the court was deHvered on
November 11, 185 1, and was in favor of the claimants on
every material point. The suit in Ohio to recover their
interest in the property at Cincinnati, was decided ad-
versely to the Church, South, in July, 1852. The text
of this decision is quoted in full in Curtiss's *' Manual of
Methodist Episcopal Church History," pp. 201, 202. The
commissioners of the Church, South, appealed from the
decision of the Court in Ohio to the Supreme Court of
the United States, and the judgment of the Ohio Court
6o THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. vi.
was reversed by the unanimous decision of the highest
tribunal in the land, in April, 1854.
The journals of the General Conferences of 1844, 1846, 1848, and of the
Louisville Convention of 1845 were before the court. The Discipline figured
largely before Caesar, and great lawyers, prompted by Bangs and Peck on
the one side, and by Smith and Green on the other, made themselves
minutely acquainted with the genius and details of Episcopal Methodist
government. They had a patient hearing before a bench renowned in juris-
prudence and accustomed to construe contracts. 1
Henry B. Bascom was elected bishop at the General
Conference of 1850, and David S. Doggett was elected
editor of the " Quarterly Review." It was upon the occa-
sion of his own ordination that he delivered his memorable
sermon on ** Glorying in the Cross " (Gal. vi. 14). He lived,
however, to hold only one Annual Conference, the St. Louis,
at Independence, Mo., July, 1850. He died in September
of the same year, at Louisville, Ky.
The career of Henry B. Bascom as preacher, educator, and author was
brilliant ; and as bishop, brief. The son of poor parents, his heritage was
toil and privation. His school advantages ended in his twelfth year, and he
was making pumps for a living at fifteen. At the age of seventeen he was
admitted into the traveling connection in Ohio. Hard circuits were his
portion and probation for a long time, yet no pulpit orator in his day had an
equal fame. He preached at the General Conference of 1840, and one who
was present describes the sermon thus :
" He preached in the Light Street Church to as dense a throng as could
crowd into the spacious building, while the adjoining street was filled with
people who could not find entrance. His text was, ' Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' The sermon embraced all
the cardinal elements of the Christian system, set forth in a light so vivid,
under illustrations so magnificent, and with a vehemence so rushing and
pauseless, as to hold the vast audience spellbound. At particular passages,
several of which we distinctly remember, the effect was awful. The sen-
tences came like the sharp zigzag lightning; the tones of the preacher's
voice were like articulate thunder. The hearer cowered under the weight of
thought piled on thought, and was driven almost beside himself by the rapid
whirl of dazzling imagery. The audience was bewildered by the quick suc-
cession of vivid pictures thrown off as by the turn of a grand kaleidoscope. " 2
1 McTyeire's " History," p. 648.
2 Dr. W. M. Wightman, in " Southern Christian Advocate."
BISHOP BASCOM. 6 1
But it was a popular error that his superiority lay in speaking only. His
ecclesiastical state papers are of the very first rank. He wrote the Protest
in the General Conference of 1844, and he wrote other papers which are
models of mental grasp and perspicuity and force.
His devotion to his father in sickness and poverty was beautiful. He cut
and hauled wood from the forest for the use of the household, and, to make
himself a wakeful nurse, he slept on a bench with a block of wood for his
pillow. After holding the St. Louis Conference he returned to St. Louis
and preached on Sunday, greatly exhausting himself, and soon after, he died,
with this testimony : * ' All my trust and confidence is in Almighty Goodness
as revealed in the cross of Christ." 1
1 McTyeire's " History."
CHAPTER VII.
THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERAL CONFERENCES
OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.
The third General Conference of the M. E. Church,
South, was held at Columbus, Ga., in May, 1854. There
were one hundred and nineteen delegates in attendance,
and among them we notice for the first time the names of
some who were afterward to become distinguished in the
history of the church: E. M. Marvin, H. N. McTyeire,
and John C. Keener, as bishops, and Dr. E. E. Wiley, as
the president of Emory and Henry College. Among the
delegates we note also for the second time the name of
Charles F. Deems, who afterward, in 1866, became the
distinguished pastor of the Church of the Strangers in
New York City, and so remained until his death.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate litigation of the period
and the sorrowful and bitter newspaper controversies
that attended it, the rank and file of the ministry and
membership of the church had given themselves to their
proper work, and the blessing of the Lord of the vineyard
had attended their efforts. There was a very considerable
and, in view of the state of the church and country, a
very gratifying increase in the membership. The follow-
ing figures will show the comparative membership of 1850
and 1854:
Traveling Local White Colored Indian
preachers, preachers. members. members. members.
Total.
[850.
[854.,
■••i»7oo 3,955 375,520 135,594 3,487
•••2,092 4,359 428,501 164,584 3,757
The total increase of the quadrennium was 83,047.
62
520,256
603,303
THE PUBLISHING HOUSE. 63
The commissioners who were charged with the property
question between the Northern and Southern churches,
reported at the conference of 1854, that the suits had
been decided in favor of the M. E. Church, South. The
church was now in a position to estabHsh a pubHshing-
house of its own, which accordingly was done by the Gen-
eral Conference of 1854. Louisville, Memphis, Atlanta,
St. Louis, Richmond, and Columbus were voted for on the
first three or four ballots, but on the sixth ballot Nashville
received 60 out of 117 votes, and was selected, while
Louisville received 57. This establishment was for the
purpose of manufacturing and publishing books, and was
to be under the control of two agents and a book com-
mittee. The object of the institution was to advance the
cause of Christianity by disseminating religious knowledge
and useful literary and scientific information in cheap books,
tracts, and periodicals. The agents were authorized to in-
vest as much as $75,000 in grounds, house, and fixtures.
Rev. Edward Stevenson and Rev. F. A. Owen were elected
the first agents of the house.
The membership in the State of Arkansas had increased
so as to justify a new conference, which was provided for
by the General Conference of 1854. It was organized by
Bishop Kavanaugh at Washington, Ark., in November of
the same year. The Kansas Mission Conference was also
provided for by the General Conference of 1854, and was
to include Kansas Territory and part of the Territory of
New Mexico.
It will be remembered that a few months after his eleva-
tion to the episcopacy. Bishop Bascom had died. Bishop
Soule was now seventy-three years of age, and in very
feeble health. Bishop Andrew and Bishop Capers, coming
from the previous century, were also men well advanced
in years, and worn with long, laborious, and exhausting
64 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. vii.
toil. The remaining superintendent, Bishop Paine, was in
the prime of a robust and vigorous manhood, but he needed
rehef and assistance in the widening range of episcopal re-
sponsibility and duty. It was decided to strengthen the
episcopacy by the addition of three bishops. The choice
of the conference fell on George F. Pierce, of Georgia, John
Early, of Virginia, and Hubbard H. Kavanaugh, of Ken-
tucky. And they were ordained in the Methodist Church
in Columbus, Ga., on Wednesday, May 24, 1854.
The General Conference of 1858 was opened on the
first day of May, in the hall of the House of Representa-
tives, in the capitol, at Nashville, Tenn. The publishing-
house, which was projected by the General Conference of
1854 and located at Nashville, had been completed and
was in operation. This fact determined the future rank
and destiny of Nashville as the ecclesiastical center of
Southern Methodism. It was right and proper that the
General Conference should now convene in the city which
their choice had selected as the base of their supplies and
the headquarters of their ecclesiastical operations. Ac-
cordingly, toward the end of April, 1858, from all quarters
of the South, by steamboat and railroad and stage-coach,
the delegates came up to the great quadrennial represent-
ative convocation. There were present one hundred and
fifty-one duly accredited members — only twenty-nine less
than the full number of delegates at the last and largest
General Conference of the undivided church in 1844, and
twenty-one more than were present at the preceding and
next largest General Conference of the undivided church
in 1840.
Six of the seven bishops who signed the journal of the
Conference of 1854 were present: Joshua Soule, J. O.
Andrew, R. Paine, G. F. Pierce, John Early, H. H. Kava-
naugh. The saintly Capers, after a life of singular purity.
MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES, 65
fidelity, and usefulness, had finished his course with joy,
had laid his armor by, and had gone to join the general
assembly and church of the firstborn, whose names are
written in heaven; and his name, disappearing from the
rolls and journals of the church on earth, was written
with theirs on high. The memory of his self-sacrificing
devotion to the good of men, poor and rich, black and
white, is like ointment poured forth through all the South-
ern church and land.
The address of the bishops reminds the assembled rep-
resentatives of the church that " the work of God has
greatly prospered and enlarged within our bounds. God
has done great things for us and by us. The retrospect
of the last four years is full of instruction and encourage-
ment; and yet how much more might have been accom-
plished had we been faithful to the grace of God received,
and zealous in diffusing that grace abroad."
While the usual and due prominence was given to the
missionary work among the slaves of the Southern planta-
tions, which the address of the bishops declares to be '* the
crowning glory of our church," the attention of the church
was called to the outlying regions, and measures were
adopted to extend its operations in as many ways and
directions as possible. The General Conference at this
session provided for the organization of the Rio Grande
Mission Conference, and recommended to the bishops the
establishment of a mission in Central America at the ear-
liest practicable day, and by resolution requested the
bishops and the board of missions, in the event of provi-
dential indications, " to proceed at once to organize a
mission at such a point in Africa as they shall judge most
expedient."
And yet, while laying their plans for more extended
and efficient missionary operations among the slaves of
66 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. vii.
the South and for founding a mission among the benighted
blacks
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sands,
thus manifesting a pecuHar and special interest in this
race, whom at least they kneiv better than others, this
General Conference adopted a measure which at first sight
will seem utterly enigmatical and contradictory. On May
19th, after a good deal of discussion, a resolution was
adopted, by a majority of a hundred and forty-one to
seven, to the effect that the rule on the subject of slavery
be expunged from the general rules of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South ; and the bishops were instructed
to lay the resolution before the Annual Conferences for
their concurrent action. Those who passed this measure
may give their own reasons for it :
The Southern Church has avowed as their settled belief and sentiment that
slavery is not a subject of ecclesiastical legislation. It is not the province of
the church to deal with civil institutions in her legislative capacity. This is
our position. The primary single object of this action is to conform the
Discipline to that profession. In the Twenty-third Article of Religion in
our Book of Discipline we recognize the Constitution and Government of
the United States, and obedience to them as a religious duty, and pledge
ourselves, in our very profession of faith, to fidelity to the country and her
authority. We claim to be loyal citizens. We have only set ourselves right
on the question that has so long troubled the church. The legislation in
reference to it was contradictory and absurd. While denouncing slavery as
an evil and pledging the church to its extirpation, it provided by statute for
its allowance and perpetuation. We have surrendered to Csesar the things
that are Caesar's, and, holding ourselves to be debtors to the wise and the
unwise, the bond and the free, we can now preach Christ alike to the master
and the servant, cecure in the confidence and affection of the one and the
other. The benign spirit of our holy religion not only demands that masters
should render to their servants that which is just and equal as to food, rai-
ment, and shelter, but that religious instruction should be provided alike for
servants as for children. The gospel is God's gift to the black man as well
as to the white, and Christian masters should see to it that all their depend-
ents are regularly supplied with the preaching of the Word and all the privi-
leges of the Church of God, The salvation of Uie colored race in our midst,
BISHOP PAINE' S ''LIFE OF McKENDREE^ 6/
as far as human instrumentality can secure it, is the primary duty of the
Southern Church. Let us earnestly seek to meet our responsibilities, and
then, whatever evil thing may be said of us, we shall have the testimony of a
good conscience and the blessing of Him who is judge of all.i
It does seem that this action deserves at least the credit
of consistency. The only consistent alternative was to
refuse to receive slaveholders into the church at all, and
to exclude those that were already in. If the Methodist
Church had adopted this rule in the beginning, all the con-
flict and strife on this subject might have been avoided,
though it may be questioned whether its influence and
work and usefulness would have been as extensive. Indeed,
it is practically certain that, in that case, the Metnodist
Church would have had very little success in the South.
At the General Conference of 1858 Bishop Paine re-
ported that the manuscript of his *' Life and Times of
Bishop McKendree " was ready for publication. The
church now has this memorable production in enduring
form. And though Bishop McKendree was second only
to Asbury in his influence on American Methodism, North
and South, if indeed he was second to him, yet as he was
a son of the South it was fitting that a son of the South
should write his biography. The book is worthy of its sub-
ject ; and it is declared by those competent to judge, to be,
incidentally, the best extant history of the origin and growth
of the constitution of American Episcopal Methodism.
Much attention was given to the new publishing-house
by the General Conference of 1858, and that man of re-
sources, tact, and uncommon sense, John B. McFerrin,
was put at its head as agent for the next quadrennium,
with R. Abbey as financial secretary.
The report of the committee on education was an in-
teresting document. It contained an exhaustive list of the
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1858," pp. 461, 584.
68 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. vii.
colleges and schools under the patronage of the church.
As long ago as 1858 a charter was obtained from the
legislature of Tennessee for the Central University of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This university,
however, never came into existence. In two short years
after this the country was filled with rumors of war, and
the best laid plans of the Southern Methodist Church for
establishing missions in Central America and in Africa and
for founding a great university came to naught.
The growth of the church for the preceding four years
is shown by the following figures :
Traveling Local White Colored Indian rp .
preachers, preachers. members. members. members. ° '
1854... 2,092 4,359 428,511 164,584 3,757 603,303
1858.... 2,577 4,984 499,694 188,036 3,874 699,165
showing a total increase of 95,862.
The next tabulation will show a suggestive and sor-
rowful decrease.
Thomas O. Summers was elected editor of the '' Quar-
terly Review." L. D. Huston was elected editor of ''The
Home Circle." H. N. McTyeire was elected editor of the
'* Nashville Christian Advocate " in the place of J. B.
McFerrin ; and the career of O. P. Fitzgerald as an editor
began at the General Conference of 1858. He was elected
editor of the " Pacific Methodist " by " a rising and unani-
mous vote." E. W. Sehon was elected missionary secretary.
New Orleans was selected as the place for the meeting
of the General Conference of 1862. Little did the dele-
gates dream of the events and changes that were to take
place in the interval — that the whole country would be
convulsed with civil war, and that in the very month
before they were to meet in New Orleans that city would
be occupied by an invading, hostile army.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOME GLIMPSES OF THE WAR PERIOD.
The statistical returns for the year i860 show that up
to the outbreak of the war the Southern Church kept on
the even tenor of its way, extending its operations and in-
creasing its membership from all classes of its population,
whites, blacks, and Indians. In that year she had en-
rolled 537,136 white members, an increase of 37,442 over
the year 1858; 20JyJT6 colored members, an increase of
19,740 over the year 1858; and 4160 Indian members, an
increase of 286 over 1858. The total membership of the
church in i860 was over three quarters of a million, or, in
exact figures, 757,205, a total increase of 56,040 in the
two preceding years.
All the interests of the church were in a flourishing
condition. The Publishing House, under the efficient
management of John B. McFerrin, had developed a large
business, and continued to prosper up to the time when
the Federal army entered Nashville in 1862. It was then
taken by the military and used for a United States print-
ing-office and other purposes. Much of the stock and
material was used up, and the machinery greatly damaged.
In the matter of education, the statistics show that up
to the beginning of the war the Southern Church had
multipHed, with commendable zeal, her schools and colleges
for both sexes over the vast extent of her territory, from
ocean to ocean and from the Ohio to the Gulf, in whose
halls her youth were regularly receiving the benefits of
scholastic training, entering and returning in perpetual
69
70 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. viii.
succession. In 1858 she had in successful operation 106
schools and colleges.
But during the war, professors, teachers, and students
were withdrawn from the seats of learning, their halls were
vacated, schools were deserted, text-books and apparatus
were abandoned, college endowments were swept away,
patrons were impoverished. Hundreds of schools as well
as churches were burned or dismantled by use as hospitals,
warehouses, or stables. The ghastly devastations left in
the track of invading armies, the horrors of two thousand
battles,^ the portentous rumors and the agonizing anxieties
that are incident to war — these were the portion of the
South through four long and sorrowful years. And yet
in the midst of these scenes and these sorrows the preach-
ers of the Southern Methodist Church, as a rule, continued
faithful to their holy calling and their heaven-appointed
work. They filled their appointments much as of old.
They preached, they exhorted, they prayed, they held
protracted meetings, they attended, with some exceptions,
their Annual Conferences. And during those trying years
gracious revivals of religion among the people attested
how the divine presence was still in their midst. ^ Not
among the people only, but in many places among the sol-
diers of the Lost Cause, the gospel was faithfully preached,
and the Lord confirmed it with signs following.
The writer will be excused for introducing here some
perhaps lengthy extracts from the war diary of a chaplain
in the Confederate army. They are interesting, as well
for the vivid pictures of war times and war scenes drawn
by an eye-witness, as for the account of the remarkable
work of grace among the soldiers, which they contain.
And that chaplain was John B. McFerrin.
1 Official reports of Surgeon-General Barnes give 2 no.
2 "Journal of the General Conference of 1866," pp. 16, ff.
REVIVALS IN THE ARMY. 7 1
When the Federal army occupied Middle Tennessee in 1862, I took my
family south of the lines and stopped at Cornersville, Tenn., leaving house
and furniture in the hands of others. A little later I went to Atlanta, Ga.,
to meet the bishops and the Board of Missions. While there I was cut off
from my family. It was a sad and sorrowful day. I was in Georgia, my
wife and children away from their home in Tennessee. We were ignorant
of each other's whereabouts or condition. General Bragg's raid into Ken-
tucky drew the Federal army out of Middle Tennessee, and I returned to
Cornersville, where the Tennessee Conference was to be held on the 15th of
October, 1862. No bishop being present, I was elected president of the
conference, and conducted the business to the end. The attendance was
tolerably full, though some of the brethren were too far north to reach the
place. At a meeting of the bishops and Missionary Board, April, 1863, at
Macon, Ga., it was determined to send missionaries to the Confederate army.
I was appointed in charge of all the Methodist missionary work in the Army
of the Tennessee. I entered immediately on my work in the army, and as
fast as I could, I engaged as many preachers as I thought the Missionary
Society could sustain. I began my work in Shelbyville. I was hailed with
pleasure by the officers and soldiers. For some time I remained about
Shelbyville and the adjoining neighborhoods, preaching day and night. A
great work of grace had commenced in many of the commands, and the chap-
lains and preachers in the neighborhood were actively engaged in the precious
revival that was springing up in almost every direction. On May 17, 1863,
10 A.M., I preached in the Presbyterian Church: house crowded with officers
and soldiers ; serious attention. At three o'clock, I preached in Bates' bri-
gade: a very good time; revival in the brigade. May 19th, I preached in
B. Johnson's brigade : thirty to forty mourners ; glorious work in this com-
mand. May 20th, I preached in General Polk's brigade : many mourners ;
several conversions. May 21st, I preached in General Wood's brigade : forty
to fifty mourners : fifteen or twenty conversions. May 22d, I spoke in Gen-
eral Riddle's brigade : a great work here ; already more than one hundred con-
versions in this command. So the work went on. But in June I was taken
sick, and remained unfit for work till August, when I joined the army again
at Chattanooga, and on August 14th preached in General Wright's brigade.
There were five conversions that night, among them a captain. From this
till September 19th I was constantly engaged in preaching, visiting, and
holding prayer-meetings in various parts of the army, and many precious
souls were converted during this revival. On September 19th and 20th the
great battle was fought at Chickamauga, fifteen miles from Chattanooga.
The slaughter was tremendous on both sides, but the Confederates held the
field. I remained on the battlefield eleven days, nursing the sick, ministering
to the wounded, and praying for the dying. The sight was awful. Thou-
sands of men killed and wounded. They lay thick all around, shot in every
possible manner, and the wounded dying every day. Among the wounded
were many Federal soldiers. To these I ministered, prayed with them, and
72 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. viii.
wrote letters by flag of truce to their friends in the North. They seemed to
appreciate every act of kindness.
The Federals occupied Chattanooga, and for weeks the two armies were
in full view of each other. All along the foot of Missionary Ridge we
preached almost every night to crowded assemblies, and many precious souls
were brought to God. After the battle of Missionary Ridge the Confederate
army retreated and went into winter quarters at Dalton, Ga. During these
many months the chaplains and missionaries were at work — preaching, visit-
ing the sick, and distributing Bibles, tracts, and religious newspapers. There
was preaching in Dalton every night but four, for four months ; and in the
camps all around the city preaching and prayer-meetings occurred every
night. The soldiers erected stands, improvised seats, and even built log
churches, where they worshiped God in spirit and in truth. The result was
that thousands were happily converted and were prepared for the future that
awaited them. Officers and men alike were brought under religious influence.
In all my life, perhaps, I never witnessed more displays of God's power in
the awakening and conversion of sinners than in these protracted meetings
during the winter and spring of 1863-64. The preachers of the various
denominations were alike zealous ; our army ministerial associations were
pleasant, and at our meetings we had precious seasons of joy and rejoicing
while recounting the victories of the cross. In May, 1864, I left the army
and went to Montgomery, Ala., to meet the bishops and the Board of Mis-
sions. All resolved to maintain the work of religion in the army. Hearing
that the armies had commenced hostilities near Dalton, I left on the first
train for the place of conflict, and resumed my work among the soldiers. At
Atlanta a gentleman gave me a bolt of blue linen. I had a suit made of
it for the warm weather. It was pleasant, but attracted much attention.
When General Johnston evacuated Atlanta, he was relieved of his command
and General Hood made chief commander. He at once resolved to march
into Middle Tennessee, and so cut off the supplies of the Federal army in
Georgia. During all this marching and fighting we kept up religious ser-
vices wherever it was possible to collect the men together. From May to
September the army was in motion, and I might say every foot of ground was
contested. Thousands were slain in battle or died of sickness. I visited the
hospitals, and preached, with the missionaries and chaplains, wherever it was
possible to do so. At Tuscumbia and Florence for two weeks we had re-
freshing seasons. Large congregations assembled in the churches and in
camp, many souls were converted, and Christians were made to rejoice. This
seemed a preparation for the disasters that followed. The army moved
on to Franklin, Tenn., where occurred the most bloody battle of the war in
proportion to the numbers engaged. The fight began late in the afternoon
of November 30th, and continued till a late hour in the night. The slaughter
was terrible on both sides. The Federals were strongly fortified, and the
Confederates fought in an open field. They charged the breastworks several
times, and hundreds were shot down while the muzzles of their muskets rested
''THE ARMY CHURCH'' OF BISHOP MARVIN, 73
on the head-logs of the fortifications. By sunrise next morning I was passing
through the heaps of slain soldiers, having spent the night at the field-hos-
pital. Such a scene I never before looked upon. I had witnessed more
extensive battles, but here the dead lay in heaps. The sight was sickening,
heart-rending, horrible, awful. Never before had I been so fully impressed
with the cruelty of war, notwithstanding I had witnessed many bloody fights.
On the 7th of December my wife ran the blockade and met me at the house
of her cousin, near Nashville. It was a joyful meeting, after a separation
of fourteen long months. I asked for the children, but could not see them.
When I told my wife where I had been, what I had done, what good meet-
ings we had had, how I waited on the sick and ministered to the well, she
rose to her feet and said, "Husband, stay with them to the last!"
On December 15th and i6th the battle around Nashville was fought.
Hood's ranks were broken, and he retreated toward Franklin. The ground
had been covered with snow and ice for several days. Then came a heavy
rain ; the snow and ice were melting, and the poor soldiers — many of them
barefooted, or nearly so — moved back with bleeding feet and aching hearts.
They had expected, when they left Georgia, to regain their homes and see
their friends ; but now it was all over, and their spirits sank within them.
Again I turned my back on home, and with downcast spirits accompanied
the retreating army, in the rain, in the snow, over swollen streams and roads
almost impassable. During this retreat I preached whenever practicable,
especially at Columbus, Miss., and Augusta, Ga., where I was engaged in
visiting the hospitals also. . . .
After the surrender of Lee and Johnston I returned to Nashville, reaching
there late at night, May 20, 1865. My house had been burned, and my
family and myself went to her brother's and began life anew. Horses gone,
cattle gone, fences gone, timber gone, money gone, servants gone — the out-
look was unpromising. Nothing daunted, however, we went to work to make
a living,
October came. The Tennessee Conference, which had not convened for
two years, met in Nashville, at Tulip Street, and the bishop read me out as
Book Agent. 1
The work of another of these army chaplains is worthy
a place in these pages. He was connected with the army
that operated in Arkansas and the West. The work done
by him and under his direction is one of the lights that
relieve the dark picture of the horrors of war. '* Under
the faithful ministry of gospel truth by him and other
faithful chaplains and missionaries," says one who was
1 Fitzgerald's " Life of McFerrin," pp. 269, ff.
74 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. viii.
upon the field, ** very extensive revivals of religion oc-
curred in the army, especially during the winter encamp-
ment in Arkansas, 1863-64. At, Little Rock, Camden,
Camp Bragg, and Three Creeks, revivals continued for
months. I kept an estimate for two years of the number
of conversions, and in the two years they amounted to
more than two thousand." Says another, who was asso-
ciated in the work :
The writer [Rev. Horace Jewell] was a chaplain in one of the Arkansas
regiments, and was intimately associated with Brother Marvin in his labors
for the spiritual welfare of the soldiers. I suppose that some of the finest
efforts of his life were sermons preached to the soldiers in the camps. I
have no doubt that he was instrumental in the conversion of hundreds. Not
only was he successful in his personal ministry, but he was able to inaugu-
rate measures that assisted others in working for the cause of Christ. He
directed their labors and energies to successful results. For the ends of as-
sociation and organization he called together a meeting of chaplains and other
ministers, representing Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, and organized
a regular Army Church. The vast amount of good accomplished by it can
only be fully known in eternity.
The following is a copy of the plan of organization :
Articles of Faith.
The Christian men of the army, believing that the habitation of God by his
Spirit constitutes the church, agree, for their edification and for the conver-
sion of their fellowmen, to organize the Church of the Army, with the fol-
lowing Articles of Faith and Constitution :
Article I. We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to
be the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience.
Art. II. We believe in one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
Art. III. We believe in the fall in Adam, the redemption by Christ, and
the renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Art. IV. We believe in justification by faith alone, and therefore receive
and rest upon Christ alone as our only hope.
Art. V. We believe in the communion of saints and the doctrine of eternal
rewards and punishments.
Constitution.
The Christian men who have been baptized, adopting these "Articles of
Faith " in each regiment, shall constitute one church, who shall choose ten
THE SITUATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 75
officers to take the spiritual oversight of the same. Of the officers so selected,
the chaplain, or one selected by themselves, shall act as moderator. The
officers will meet once a month, or oftener, if necessary, and in the exercise
of discipline will be governed by the teachings of Christ. They will keep a
record of the names of the members, and the manner in which their connec-
tion with the church is dissolved.
One of the associated chaplains has this to say, long
after the war :
Soon after the organization of these army churches in the various regiments,
we were visited by a gracious revival, in which hundreds were converted and
gathered into these army churches. My position as a presiding elder on two
large districts since the war has given me large opportunity to compare the
results of the work in this organization. My conviction is that a much larger
percent, of the converts in these army churches have remained faithful than
is usual in our ordinary revival meetings.!
Dr. B. T. Kavanaugh, writing of the results of this work
among the soldiers, says :
After the close of the war, when the men were discharged and had returned
home, I was traveling through Texas, and put up for the night at the house
of a Christian widow lady. I was telling her of our Army Church and of
its happy influence on our soldiers, when she replied with a smile and said,
" Yes, sir; I have heard of it before, greatly to my delight: for I had two
sons in the army, and they have both returned to me converted. Christian
men." I have met with others who dated their Christian experience back to
their service in the army.
These are examples — exceptional examples, it is true —
of the work done by Southern Methodist preachers among
the soldiers during the war.
On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General
Grant at Appomattox in Virginia; on April 26th Gen-
eral Johnston surrendered to General Sherman at Greens-
boro, N. C. The South was conquered and the war was
ended. The soldiers of the Northern armies returned to
homes of comfort and a land of comparative plenty amid
the rejoicings of millions. It was otherwise in the South.
1 Finney's " Life of Bishop Marvin," pp. 378, 379.
76 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. viii.
Everywhere were desolation and destitution, and, for a
moment, the pall of despair. Homes and houses had been
destroyed. Plantations and farms had been laid waste.
Fences had been burned. The live stock had been used
up by the Confederates or confiscated by the Federals, and
those were considered fortunate who had, at the close
of the war, a solitary mule, an abandoned army horse, or
a single milk cow. Mills were destroyed. Implements
of industry were gone. Provisions and clothing had been
exhausted, and large districts were on the verge of famine.
Soldiers returned to their homes to find them in ruins and
their loved ones in want. Women received back, with
tears of rejoicing, husbands and brothers, fathers and sons,
but they received them barefooted and in rags. Added
to their difficulties and destitution were the exactions and
oppressions of the rapacious adventurers, who, as agents
of reconstruction, came down on the South like wolves on
the fold.
The Southern people had lost their cause, for which let
us unceasingly thank God ; and they had lost their all.
But they had not lost heart or hope or manhood or self-
respect or courage, for which also let us thank God. After
a breathing-spell they arose to meet the problems of their
new situation, and to undertake the task of recuperation
with a calmness, a courage, and a good-will which have
been the admiration of the world.
The Southern Methodist Church shared all the disasters
of the scene of war, and all the difficulties and embarrass-
ments of the situation at its close. When in 1865 she
called her rolls, though the church still lived many of her
sons were dead or missing. She had suffered a threefold
decimation in those terrible years from '61 to '65. Her
ministers, as already noted, continued, straight on through
the war, to preach the gospel to the people at home and
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1866. 'J'J
the soldiers on the field, to the whites and to the blacks,
to the poor and to the — poorer; but the regular opera-
tions of the church machinery were much interfered with.
The Annual Conferences, as a rule, were held, but with
diminished numbers, and often without the presence of a
bishop.
When the time approached for the General Conference
of 1862, appointed to meet in New Orleans, though dele-
gates had been elected by all the Annual Conferences, yet
it was thought impracticable to attempt the holding of a
General Conference at that time and place. Contrary to
the expectations and calculations of the General Conference
of 1858, Admiral Farragut and General Butler had antic-
ipated them in the occupancy of New Orleans, in April,
1862; and it was not entirely certain that General Butler
would hospitably receive the General Conference or facili-
tate its proceedings. It therefore lapsed.
In August, 1865, after a short season for review and
reflection, the bishops of the church held a meeting in
Columbus, Ga., and issued a '' Pastoral Address to the
Preachers and Members of the Church." They reviewed
the past few years and the present situation.
It was like the blast of a trumpet, and gave no uncertain sound :
" The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, still lived, and in all its polity
and principles was unchanged. Neither disintegration nor absorption was
for a moment to be thought of, all rumors to the contrary notwithstanding.
Whatever banner had fallen or been furled, that of Southern Methodism was
still unfurled; whatever cause had been lost, that of Southern Methodism
survived."
The Annual Conferences were instructed to elect dele-
gates to the session of the General Conference to be held
in New Orleans in 1866, according to adjournment eight
years before. In the meeting of the Annual Conferences
of the fall of 1865, ''the peeled and scattered hosts, dis-
73 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. viii.
couraged and confused by adversities and adverse rumors,
rallied ; and never did delegates meet in General Confer-
ence from center and remotest posts more enthusiastically.
Of one hundred and fifty-three delegates elect, one hun-
dred and forty-nine were present." ^
1 McTyeire, " History of Methodism."
CHAPTER IX.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1 866.
The first session of the General Conference after the
close of the war was held in the Carondelet Street Church
in New Orleans, in April, 1866. It was, next to that of
1846, the most important and memorable in the history
of the church. Five of the six bishops were present —
Andrew, Paine, Pierce, Early, and Kavanaugh. Bishop
Soule was too feeble to be in attendance. Thomas O.
Summers was elected secretary.
On the third day of the session a delegation from the
Baltimore Conference appeared, asking admission into the
M. E. Church, South. At the time of the separation in
1845, this conference had adhered to the Methodist Epis-
copal Church. In 1861 they withdrew from that jurisdic-
tion, and maintained an independent existence until their
session at Alexandria in March, 1866, when they formally
adhered to the M. E. Church, South, and delegates, six
in number, were elected to the General Conference in New
Orleans.
Notwithstanding this accession, the statistics show a
large and suggestive decrease in membership. In i860
the general minutes showed a grand total of 757,205
members; in 1866 it had fallen to 51 1,161, showing a loss
of 246,044. In the South, as in the North, as President
Lincoln said, *' The Methodist Church sent more soldiers
to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers
to heaven than any other ;" and the great decrease in the
79
8o THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ix.
membership of both churches bears suggestive witness that
the Methodists did not stay at home and take care of
themselves.
On the fourth day of the session, when the General
Conference had gotten under full headway, there was a
very pleasant interruption of the proceedings. The sec-
retary announced that he had received a telegraphic dis-
patch from the New York East Conference of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, then in session in Brooklyn. It
was as follows :
Whereas the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, is now in session in the city of New Orleans ; therefore,
Resolved, That we, the New York East Conference of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, hereby present to that venerable representative body our Chris-
tian salutations, and cordially invite them, together with us, to make next
Sabbath, April 8, 1866, a day of special prayer, both in private and in the
public congregations, for the peace and unity of our common country and for
the full restoration of Christian sympathy and love between the churches,
especially between the different branches of Methodism in this nation ;
That the secretary be instructed to transmit by telegraph a copy of this
resolution to the secretary of the General Conference of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, South, at New Orleans.
This communication was received with great interest,
and the General Conference, by a standing vote, adopted
a resolution instructing the secretary to express by tele-
graph to the New York East Conference their cordial re-
ciprocation of these Christian salutations and their cordial
agreement to unite with that conference on Sunday, April
8th, '* in special and solemn prayer, in private and in the
public congregations, for the very desirable objects speci-
fied in their fraternal message."^
Numerous changes, some of them important, were made
in the economy of the church by the General Conference
of 1866. Says one of those who took a prominent part:
*' Men's minds had become used to great changes, and the
1 "Journal of the General Conference of 1866," p. 26.
IMPORTANT CHANGES. 8l
session at New Orleans was therefore favorable for meas-
ures upon which the usual conservatism might have hesi-
tated long in ordinary times. "^
Attendance upon class-meeting, which up to this time
was obligatory, was made voluntary, and so put upon the
same ground as attendance upon the other means of grace.
The General Conference did not, by any means, intend, in
this action, to aboHsh the class-meeting; but eventually,
and to the great regret of many, bishops, preachers, and
people, it resulted in a practical abolition of this time-
honored institution, though it still lingers in some places,
and love-feasts are regularly held in connection with quar-
terly meetings.
The rule imposing a probation of six months on candi-
dates for membership was set aside. It was supposed
that " admission to the church would be guarded with
reasonable and conscientious care." It is to be feared,
however, that this is not in all cases true, and that there
is practically insufficient detention of candidates for ascer-
taining their spiritual condition or obtaining substantial as-
surances of their religious experience or the genuineness
of their purpose of consecration and obedience. In some
conferences, however, there are exceptions, and the door
of admission into the church is carefully and jealously
guarded, as it ought to be in all.
The pastoral term was, not without much discussion and
opposition, extended from two to four years. District
conferences were discussed and recommended, but not
formally adopted and authoritatively imposed till the
General Conference of 1870. Among the most important
measures of the General Conference of 1866 was the
adoption of lay representation in the General and the
Annual Conferences. The experiment had been made
1 McTyeire, " History of Methodism."
n3
82 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ix.
and the example set by the Methodist Protestant Church,
which indeed was organized on the basis of lay represen-
tation as long before as 1830. A sentiment, says Bishop
McTyeire, in favor of lay delegation had been growing
for years in the Southern Methodist Church. At least
two tentative schemes had preceded the legislative action
of 1866, one in the Virginia Conference and one in the
Louisiana Conference. The law, as adopted in 1866, pro-
vided for four lay delegates for each presiding elder's
district in the Annual Conferences, while in the General
Conference, the law-making body, the number of lay del-
egates was made equal to the clerical.
So ripe was public opinion, so propitious the times, and so well digested
was the scheme, that this great change was introduced without heat or par-
tisanship. Unstintedly, on their own motion, the ministry, who had held
this power from the beginning, divided it equally with lay brethren, and a new
power was developed, a new interest awakened, and a new progress begun.
Bishop Soule, now eighty- five years old, in age and
feebleness extreme, and Bishops Andrew and Early, ad-
vanced in years, and worn with incessant travel and ex-
cessive toil, were, at their own reluctant request, retired
from active service and four new bishops were elected:
W. M. Wightman, Enoch M. Marvin, David S. Doggett,
and Holland N. McTyeire. Dr. Wightman had been a
member of the General Conferences of 1840 and 1844,
prior to the division of the church, and of every General
Conference of the Southern Church after the division.
From 1840 to 1854 he was editor of the "Southern
Christian Advocate." From 1854 to 1859 he was presi-
dent of Wofford College in South Carolina, and after 1859
chancellor of the Southern University at Greensboro, Ala.,
till his election as bishop. He was the author of the
*' Life of Bishop William Capers," and a contributor to the
" Life of Dr. Olin," edited by Mrs. Olin. He was a man
SKETCH OF BISHOP MARVIN. 83
of fine ability and of superior scholarship. His sermons
showed most careful preparation, were delivered with great
deliberation and precision, and often rose into eloquence.
Brother Marvin, as those who knew him preferred to
call him, came from the common people, retained always
the simplicity and ruggedness of the common people, and
was always a favorite with the common people. He was
born in a log cabin, and when seventeen years old, in a
log cabin he was born again. But he was born again.
Nobody that knew him ever doubted that. College train-
ing he had none, but he had the old-time religion and
much native mental vigor. What of him was not God-
made was self-made. When he went up to join confer-
ence at Jefferson City, in his native State of Missouri in
1842, his homeliness of person, his awkwardness of man-
ner, and his homespun, misfit clothing marked him as a
country curiosity. In these respects he was not unlike
the homely-faced, awkward-mannered, ill-clad rail-splitter
of Kentucky, who afterward became President of the
United States. But he could preach. He had it in him
to rise. And he rose. In 1854 he was a delegate to the
General Conference. In 1855 he was pastor of a metro-
politan church in St. Louis. In 1863 he was superintend-
ent of chaplains in the army, with what results we have
already seen. In 1866 he was elected bishop on the first
ballot. His elevation from the pastorate to the episco-
pate had no visible effect on the childlike simplicity of his
character, the humility of his spirit, or the intense direct-
ness of his preaching. It did not remove him from the
people. He still preached at camp-meetings, held pro-
tracted services for his brethren, and still saw sinners
powerfully convicted and gloriously converted under his
preaching, as when he was a country boy-preacher in old
Missouri. In spontaneous, fiery outbursts of natural elo-
84 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH, [Chap. ix.
quence, he has perhaps not had his equal in the Southern
Church. In 1876 he made an episcopal visit to the China
mission, and in 1877, on his way back to the West by the
way of the East, he attended the British Wesleyan Con-
ference as fraternal delegate of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. He was the author of several books, the
best known of which is perhaps his book of travels, '' To
the East by the Way of the West." His smaller and
earlier work entitled "The Work of Christ" is vigorous
and thought-provoking. A short time after his death a
contribution of one dollar was asked from each namesake
of the beloved and lamented bishop for a mission school,
and over seventeen hundred dollars were sent in.
Dr. Doggett was professor in Randolph- Macon College
from 1842 to 1845. From 1850 to 1858 he was editor
of the " Quarterly Review " of the church. At the time
of his election to the episcopacy he was pastor of Cente-
nary Church in Richmond, Va. He was a polished and
dignified Virginia gentleman, a broad and versatile scholar,
and a devout and earnest Christian. His sermons were
models of homiletical architecture ; his thought was mascu-
line, and his style Ciceronian in its transparent clearness,
its dignified simplicity, its fine antithesis, its swelling vol-
ume, and its periodic compactness. When the unction
was upon him, as it often was, his eloquence was next to
irresistible.
But the one of the four new bishops who exerted the
widest influence and became most widely known was H. N.
McTyeire. He had been a pastor and an editor. At the
time of his election he was pastor in Montgomery, Ala.
Says one who knew him familiarly and for years :
He was a pure man and an able preacher, a great bishop, and a wise, firm,
impartial presiding officer, an ecclesiastical statesman, and the calm philo-
sophical historian of Methodism. ... In him joyous and sympathetic com-
SKETCH OF BISHOP McTYEIRE. 85
munion with nature, with God, and his fellowman produced a thoroughly
healthy spirit, which, free from abnormal and fantastic thinking, from false
and sickly sentiment, from bookishness and pedantry, poured forth a strong
limpid stream, which, through its whole course, refreshed and invigorated
the Church of God, in which he was ordained a bishop. His sermons were
always marked by great solemnity, relieved, however, by the genial play of
humor, which bubbled up on the surface of some great theme as naturally as
a spring bursts from the bosom of the earth. Not so leonine as Soule, . . .
nor so overwhelming as Bascom, nor so mellifluous as Pierce, nor so ornate
as Doggett, nor so rapturous as Kavanaugh, he yet possessed in singularly
harmonious proportions the elements of a really great preacher. Much of
his early preaching was to the negroes, of whom, for many years, he had
pastoral charge. ... His intense concern for the race knew no abatement
with the increase of episcopal and university responsibilities. Strong in mind
and body; bold to take up and firm to sustain the burden of duty; large in
his sympathies and generous in his impulses ; sprung from the people, loving
them and loved by them ; tenacious of his convictions and purposes ; blessed
with a rare simplicity of motive which was never confused by the enticements
of the world or corrupted by the deceitfulness of riches ; unswerving in his
loyalty to Methodism — this man faithfully served the church of his love in
his youth and early manhood, through the burden and heat of middle life ;
and as his sun crossed the meridian and began its descent of the western
skies, he laid down his finished task at his Master's feet.i
The Missionary Society of the church was found to be
$60,200 in debt, and the PubHshing House was practi-
cally in ruins. The General Conference of 1866 ** patched
up these two wrecks and sent them forth to sink or swim.
There was no capital and but little credit, no supply but
much demand." Dr. A. H. Redford, of Kentucky, was
elected Agent of the Publishing House, with no books to
sell, no facilities for making books, and no suitable place
for keeping them when made.
In the face of the ruin of their promising educational
institutions, the General Conference of 1866 calmly set
about the task of repairing it as far and as fast as possible.
" We must," they say in their address to the church,
'* meet the emergency with an unfaltering purpose, and
rise with determined might to the difficult yet hopeful task
1 Tigert's " Fraternal Address," 1892, p. 30.
86 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. ix.
which lies before us." They even undertook to make
provision for some new features in their educational work.
They recommended and insisted upon the establishment
of a Biblical Institute for the proper and special training
of young preachers. And still further: realizing the
changed conditions and their new relations and responsi-
bilities to the colored people, and reasserting their claim to
be the friend of this race — a claim vindicated by continuous
and successful exertions made in their behalf in instructing
and evangelizing them — by formal resolution they recom-
mended to their people the establishment of day-schools
for the education of colored children, and this notwith-
standing their poverty and notwithstanding heavy burdens
of their own. The bishops were authorized to form pre-
siding elders' districts of colored charges, to appoint col-
ored presiding elders, and to organize Annual Conferences
of colored preachers.
However, out of 207,776 colored members in i860
there now remained in the Southern Church only 48,742.
The others had joined the two African churches, which
up to this time had operated mainly in the North, or had
gone to the Methodist Episcopal Church, whose repre-
sentatives were everywhere to be found throughout the
South.
Five new conferences were authorized by the General
Conference of 1866: the South Georgia, the Columbia,
the Northwest Texas, the Illinois, and the North Texas,
all of which were organized the same or the following
year.
The large attendance of delegates at the General Con-
ference of 1866, the hopefulness and enthusiasm of its
members, their earnest grapple with the problems before
them, and their generous measures for the extension and
the enlarged efficiency and usefulness of the church, chal-
RENEWED ENTHUSIASM. 87
lenged and revived the confidence of the people, and
sounded the keynote of the quadrennium for renewed
activity and lofty endeavor. Preachers and people every-
where responded, and once more, after a long, dark period
of decimation, demorahzation, and depression, the church
went forward on her mission of evangelizing the nmsses
within her borders, and providing, as much as in her lay,
for the extension of her work into outlying lands.
The difficulties and embarrassments of her changed con-
dition, misrepresentation and opposition from without and
defections from within — all these were not enough to de-
stroy her courage or to check her enthusiasm. On the
contrary, they seemed to invigorate her spirit and stimu-
late her activities to an unwonted degree. Th6 itinerant
went forth again on his gracious errands, old circuit lines
were restored and extended, new and larger churches were
builded, parsonages were multiplied, schools and colleges
were reopened, and the whole machinery of church work
was in motion everywhere. The Lord seconded these
efforts with his blessing, and in all places the tokens of his
gracious presence attested that he had not forsaken his
ancient heritage. Once more the decimated rolls of the
church began to fill up, and there was a steady increase
throughout the quadrennium. In 1866 the number of
members had fallen to a little over half a million. In
1870 it had risen again to nearly six hundred thousand.
Within less than a year after the General Conference of
1866 the church was called to lament the death of their
venerable and venerated Senior Superintendent, Bishop
Joshua Soule. He was the last and a worthy member of
the great episcopal triumvirate of American Methodism —
Asbury, McKendree, Soule.
CHAPTER X.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1870.
The succeeding General Conference, held at Memphis
in May, 1870, is noteworthy for several reasons. It was
the first in which laymen participated as delegates.
Indeed, with the exception of the Methodist Protestant
Church, it was the first General Conference of the kind in
the annals of Methodism. Of lay delegates there were
one hundred and six, and of clerical, one hundred and
twenty. The experiment proved eminently successful and
satisfactory to all parties, even the most conservative and
doubtful. The venerable Bishop Paine, in his address on
the last day of the conference, said : " The inauguration
of the system of lay delegation has worked admirably,
confirming our conviction that the laity can aid greatly in
managing the great interests of the church; and I hope
our lay brethren will return home with the impression
that they are not only welcome, but that they are felt to
be an important element in our deliberations."
While this important measure, inaugurated in the South-
ern Church and under the leadership of her prominent
men, showed their wise foresight and indicated courage to
pioneer a forward movement, another measure, by them
planned and adopted at this session, demonstrated that
they were men who had a thorough acquaintance with
the past constitutional history of Methodism, a profound
knowledge of the necessity, nature, and ends of constitu-
tional law, and of constitutional safeguards for the preven-
88
THE VETO POWER OF THE BISHOPS. 89
tion of hasty action or ill-advised legislation involving
fundamental matters. In other words, while they had
the courage to inaugurate wise forward movements with-
out waiting for others to make the experiment or set the
example, they had the wise caution and conservatism to
set constitutional barriers and bulwarks against the possi-
bility of lawless action or reckless legislation. The Gen-
eral Conference of 1808, which enacted the constitution,
had left it defective in one important respect : it provided
no way of determining whether an action or measure of
the General Conference is or is not constitutional, is or is
not contrary to the Restrictive Rules. The question was
raised as far back as 1820. A resolution was passed
making presiding elders elective by the Annual Confer-
ences. Bishop McKendree expressed his decided convic-
tion that this was a violation of the Third Restrictive Rule,
and unconstitutional.
Mr. Soule, who had been elected bishop, declined to be
ordained and resigned the office, holding the same views
as Bishop McKendree.^ The offensive resolution was
suspended till the next General Conference, and a resolu-
tion was passed recommending to the Annual Conferences
so to alter the Discipline that if a majority of the bishops
judged a measure unconstitutional they should return it
to the General Conference in three days, with their objec-
tions, and a majority of two thirds should then be required
for its final passage. This resolution, however, was not
concurred in by the Annual Conferences. The same fate,
says Bishop McTyeire, met a similar effort four years
later. He goes on to say : " This want of a constitutional
test must be supplied sooner or later, — by the civil if not
by the church courts." Joshua Soule had said in 1824,
with equal truth and emphasis : '' The General Conference
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1820," pp. 236, 237.
90 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. x.
is not the proper judge of the constitutionality of its own
acts. If the General Conference be the sole judge of such
questions, then there are no bounds to its power." And
it has been forcibly said by another : '* Should the General
Conference at any time exceed its constitutional powers,
the Annual Conferences have no protection and no re-
dress ; the bishops can only submit or resign ; the church
itself, should the guaranteed rights of the membership be
invaded, has no remedy save that of revolution."
An effort was made at the General Conference of the
Southern Church in 1854 to remedy this defect of the con-
stitution, and to add to the constitution, as a part of itself,
a constitutional test of the constitutionality of the acts of
the General Conference. But the paragraph making pro-
vision for a veto power of the bishops was only passed by
a majority vote of the General Conference, and was never
submitted to the Annual Conferences, which omission ren-
dered the proviso itself unconstitutional and void. For
that reason it was stricken out of the Discipline by the
General Conference of 1870.1 At the same time, and by
the same General Conference, this defect in the constitu-
tion was supplied. The following amendment to the con-
stitution was made in the regular constitutional way — that
is, by a General Conference majority of two thirds, con-
firmed by a three-fourths vote of the Annual Conferences ;
in this case, by a General Conference majority of 160 yeas
to 4 nays, and a concurrent vote of the Annual Confer-
ences of 2024 yeas to 9 nays :
Provided^ That when any rule or regulation is adopted by the General Con-
ference which in the opinion of the bishops is unconstitutional, the bishops
may present to the conference which passed such rule or regulation their ob-
jections thereto, with their reasons in writing; and then if the General Con-
ference shall by a two-thirds vote adhere to its action on said rule or regula-
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1870," pp. 287, 331.
THE COLORED M. E. CHURCH. 9 1
tion, it shall take the course prescribed for altering a Restrictive Rule ; and
if thus passed upon affirmatively, the bishops shall announce that such rule
or regulation takes effect from that time.
Viewed from the standpoint of its organic connectional-
ism, this jealous care of the constitution is the distinguish-
ing peculiarity of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
and one of its crowning glories.
The General Conference of 1866 directed that, if the
colored membership desired it, the bishops, if and when
their godly judgment approved, should organize them into
an independent ecclesiastical body. In the interval be-
tween 1866 and 1870 the bishops formed several Annual
Conferences composed of colored preachers. That experi-
ment proved satisfactory. The colored preachers, as the
bishops declare, showed diligence as well as fidelity. A
very general and earnest desire was expressed by the
colored preachers and members for an independent church
organization. They declared that they believed it would
be best for both white and colored people to have separate
churches and schools, and that it would promote the
peace and prosperity of both the white and the colored
churches. The preachers of the colored conferences re-
quested the General Conference of 1870 to appoint a com-
mission of five to confer with delegates of their own, with
a view to the consummation of an independent organiza-
tion.^ This was accordingly done, and the colored con-
ferences, eight in number, were erected into a distinct
ecclesiastical organization in December, 1870. Bishop
Paine and Bishop McTyeire presided at the conventional
General Conference at Jackson, Tenn., and ordained two
bishops of their own election, W. H. Miles and R. H.
Vanderhorst, a wise and friendly solution of the vexed
question of colored bishops.
1 See article by Bishop Holsey in " Independent," March 5, 1891.
92 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. x.
The name of their church, chosen by themselves, was
"The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church." All the
churches and church property held by the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, for the use of their colored
membership, were turned over to the properly constituted
authorities of the new church. The total value of this
church property is estimated at $1,000,000.^ Moreover,
the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
have, in many cases, given them church-lots and helped
them to build houses for religious worship. A school for
the education of the teachers and preachers of this col-
ored church was founded some years ago by Southern
Methodists at Augusta, Ga., one man giving $25,000; and
this school is regularly supported by assessments laid upon
all the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South ; while they contribute regularly also to
the support of the Normal and Theological Institute of the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church at Jackson, Tenn.
One peculiarity of the Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church is that ** it stands aloof from politics."^ One rule
of their Discipline is that their church-houses shall not be
used for political speeches and meetings. " While exercis-
ing their rights as citizens, they endeavor to keep their re-
ligious assemblies free from that complication with political
parties which has been so damaging to the spiritual inter-
ests of the colored people." They have over 3000 churches,
over 1200 traveling preachers, 2500 local preachers, about
140,000 members, and 22 Annual Conferences, presided
over by 4 bishops.
At the General Conference of 1870, the two mission
boards, foreign and domestic, were consolidated, and Dr.
John B. McFerrin was made secretary of the new board.
1 Rev. Dr. R. A. Young tells me it was $1,500,000.
2 See the article of Bishop Holsey cited above.
DR. BLEDSOE AND THE ''SOUTHERN REVIEWS 93
Under his able and efficient management, in less than two
years the old debt was liquidated, and the church was re-
lieved of a heavy burden which for years had weighed her
down and impeded her missionary movements.^
The expansion of the work of the church in the home
field and its extension into outlying territory called for
new conferences, and six were provided for in the General
Conference of 1870. These were organized in the same
or the following year: the North Alabama, the Los An-
geles, the Southwest Missouri, the North Mississippi, the
White River, and the Western.
John C. Keener was elected bishop, and still survives
as the Senior Bishop of the church. Thomas O. Summers
was elected editor of the " Nashville Christian Advocate."
A proposition was made to the General Conference by its
editor, the distinguished Dr. A. T. Bledsoe, a local preacher,
to adopt the '' Southern Review " ; and it was accepted on
certain express conditions, one of which was the elimination
of all party politics and the substitution of a theological de-
partment.^ Dr. Bledsoe accepted the conditions, and the
" Review," which through several years was conducted with
an ability that placed it in the very front rank of similar
periodicals, became the '* Quarterly Review of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South." ** There are not a few,"
says Dr. W. F. Tillett, " who regard it as the ablest period-
ical of its kind that has ever been published in this coun-
try, and Dr. Bledsoe will always be known as one of the
strongest intellects, clearest thinkers, and ablest writers
that this country has ever produced."^
The bishops issued a pastoral address at the opening
of this General Conference, and, by special request of the
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1870," pp. 328, 329.
2 Ibid., pp. 323, 324.
3 " Southern Methodist Quarterly Review," July, 1893.
94 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. x.
conference, another near its close, on the particular sub-
ject of " Worldly Amusements." While the whole of their
pastoral address is an earnest, thoughtful, and weighty-
document, one paragraph is especially interesting at the
present time, as it shows what were the views and con-
victions of the chief pastors of the church concerning the
Methodist doctrine and experience of perfect love. They
say:
In immediate connection with the spiritual welfare of the church, the great
and only effectual remedy for most, if not all, our deficiencies as a church
people, is an increase of inward genuine Scriptural holiness. We fear that
the doctrine of perfect love which casts out fear and purifies the heart and is
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, as taught in the Bible,
and explained and enforced in our standards as a distinct and practicable
attainment, is too much overlooked and neglected. This was a paramount
theme in the discourses of our fathers, and alike in their private conversa-
tions as in their public ministrations, they urged religious people to go on to
this perfection of sanctifying love. The revivals which followed their minis-
try were not superficial or ephemeral. Their genuineness and power were
proved by the holy lives and triumphant deaths of the converts. If we would
be like them in power and usefulness, we must resemble them in holy conse-
cration. Nothing is so much needed at the present time throughout all these
lands, as a general and powerful revival of Scriptural holiness.
(Signed) J. O. Andrew, W. M. Wightman,
R. Paine, E. M. Marvin,
G. F. Pierce, D. S. Doggett,
H. H. Kavanaugh, H. N. McTyeire.i
Nothing could be more explicit or emphatic than their
utterances on the subject of worldly amusements. They
say:
Nothing less than a genuine godliness in the power of its regenerating in-
fluence can meet the necessities of the case. So powerful are the fascinations
of pleasure, so abounding is iniquity, in high places and in low, that the love
of many has waxed cold. Young persons in good society who may desire
to be religious are especially open to danger from the tone of surrounding
fashionable society and from the plausibilities of the worldly spirit. But
there can be no compromise here. There can be no inward experience of
1 "Journal of the General Conference of 1870," p. 164.
ADDRESS ON WORLDLY AMUSEMENTS. 95
grace, no valid religion of the heart, which is not preceded by a full, unre-
served, irrevocable commitment to the Lord Jesus. This commitment in-
volves self-denial, taking up the cross and following Christ. A religion of
mere culture, of amiabilities and esthetic tastes, of sentiment, opinion, and
ceremony, may readily allow participation in dancing and revelry, in theatri-
cal and operatic and circus exhibitions, and in the gambling operations of the
turf. But the religion which is a divine life in the soul of Christ's true dis-
ciple heeds the voice of conscience and feels the powers of the world to come.
It confers the dignity of holiness, the strength of self-denial, the glad freedom
of a spirit rejoicing in the right and good. Such a religion needs not, desires
not, allows not participation in worldly pleasures, in diversions which, how-
ever sanctioned by fashion, are felt and known to be wrong by every truly
awakened heart. Its spiritual discernment is not deceived by well-dressed
plausibilities, by refinements in taste, by respectabilities in social position.
It has put on the Lord Jesus, and made no provision for the flesh to fulfill
the lusts thereof.
In conclusion, we beg to suggest that the pastors of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, South, give heed to these things in the administration of dis-
cipline. The Book of Discipline provides not only against crimes and gross
immoralities, but there is a process laid down for cases of " imprudent con-
duct " as well as for indulging sinful tempers and words. We are persuaded
that where that process is faithfully, firmly, but kindly followed, these grow-
ing evils will be arrested.
^^Wise words of wise men, to which the church and minis-
try would do well to take heed in these days and always.
These utterances met with a hearty reception and response
upon the part of the ministers composing the General
Conference, and gave the watchword to the militant hosts
of the church for the ensuing quadrennial period. In
general, the spiritual tone and quality of a religious move-
ment or body does not rise above that of its accepted and
recognized leaders. The words of the bishops in their
pastoral addresses struck a high spiritual tone, and invited
the ministry and the church to strive after high and worthy
levels of Christian experience and living. The following
years were marked by general and generous revivals of
religion. There was a large ingathering of souls. By the
time of the next quadrennial convocation there was an
increase of 126,299 members, the largest the church had
96 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. X.
ever yet known within the same period. And this, not-
withstanding it had relinquished not less than 60,000 of
its members for the establishment of the Colored Meth-
odist Church in the latter part of 1870, as already related.
But after the surrender of these 60,000 there was at the
roll-call of the church in 1874 a grand total of 712,717
members. Two new conferences were provided for to
meet the exigencies of the advancing work — the German
Mission Conference in Texas and the Denver in the West.
In 1 87 1 Bishop Andrew died, at the age of seventy-
seven. He was to the last a great and good man. His
last words were : *' God bless you all ! Victory ! victory ! "
In 1873 Bishop Early died, at Lynchburg, Va. Though
in the earlier part of his episcopal career he had given
some cause of dissatisfaction on account of his peremptory
manner and arbitrary rulings, and was seriously complained
of at the General Conference of 1858, after that time he
discharged the delicate duties of that eminent office with
acceptabihty, and became greatly beloved in the church
for his Christian virtues and his long and varied service.
" He gave the days of the years of his youth and matu-r-
ity to the active service of the church, and then, amid the
infirmities of old age, illustrated the grace of God by pa-
tient submission and the triumph of faith and hope."
CHAPTER XL
LEADING EVENTS FROM 1 874 TO 1 894.
At the General Conference of 1874, held in Louisville,
Ky., regularly appointed fraternal delegates from the
Methodist Episcopal Church appeared for the first time.
Initiatory movements, however, in the direction of fra-
ternity had preceded this. The rejected fraternal dele-
gate of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
1848, had said:
You will regard this communication as final on the part of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South. She can never renew the offer of fraternal rela-
tions between the two great bodies of Wesleyan Methodists in the United
States. But the proposition can be renewed at any time by the Methodist
Episcopal Church. And if ever made upon the basis of the Plan of Separa-
tion, as adopted by the General Conference of 1844, the Church, South, will
cordially entertain the proposition.
This action of their delegate was approved by the Gen-
eral Conference of 1850. Here the matter rested until
May, 1869, when the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church invited the bishops of the Southern Church to
confer with them " on the propriety, practicability, and
methods of reunion." The Southern bishops in reply in-
vited the attention of their Northern brethren to a subject
having precedence of that of reunion, namely, the cul-
tivation of fraternal relations. Accordingly, the General
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at its ses-
sion in Brooklyn in 1 872 took the following action:
97
98 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. xi.
To place ourselves in the truly fraternal relations toward our Southern
brethren which the sentiments of our people demand, and to prepare the
way for the opening of formal fraternity with them ; it is hereby
Resolved, That this General Conference will appoint a delegation, consist-
ing of two ministers and one layman, to convey our fraternal greetings to the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at its next
ensuing session.
On Friday, the eighth day of the session of the General
Conference of 1874, this delegation, consisting of the
Rev. Dr. Albert S. Hunt, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Fowler,
and Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, having announced their presence,
were formally received. Their addresses were able, elo-
quent, courteous, and fraternal. Says the journal : " Their
utterances warmed our hearts. Their touching allusions
to the common heritage of Methodist history, to our one-
ness of doctrine, polity, and usage, and their calling to
mind the great work in which we are both engaged for the
extension of the kingdom of their Lord and ours, stirred
within us precious memories." The General Conference
by resolution requested the bishops to appoint a delega-
tion of two ministers and one layman to bear the Chris-
tian salutations of the Southern Church to the next ses-
sion of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church;! and going a step further, they passed a resolu-
tion, ** That in order to remove all obstacles to formal fra-
ternity between the two churches, our College of Bishops
is authorized to appoint a commission, consisting of three
ministers and two laymen, to meet a similar commission
authorized by the General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and to adjust all existing difficulties."
In accordance with this resolution the College of Bishops,
at their annual meeting in May, 1875, appointed the five
commissioners. They were the Rev. Dr. (now Bishop)
R. K. Hargrove, the Rev. Dr. Edward H. Myers, the
1 These were Lovick Pierce, J. A. Duncan, and L. C. Garland,
THE CAPE MAY COMMISSION. 99
Rev. Dr. Thomas M. Finney, and the Hon. Trusten Polk,
of Missouri, and Hon. David Clopton, of Alabama. In
1876 the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church authorized and the bishops appointed a similar
commission, consisting of the Rev. Dr. (now Bishop) John
P. Newman, the Rev. Dr. M. D'C. Crawford, the Rev.
Dr. E. Q. Fuller, Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, and Hon. E. L.
Fancher. The commissioners of the two churches met in
joint session at Cape May, N. J., August 17, 1876. After
a session of six days, characterized by devout supplication
for the divine blessing, a due appreciation of the pending
issue, and the exercise of becoming Christian candor, they
adopted with entire unanimity, as the basis of adjustment
and fraternal reconciliation, the following :
Declaration and Basis of Fraternity.
Status of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, and their Coordinate Relations as Legitimate Branches
of Episcopal Methodism.
Each of said churches is a legitimate branch of Episcopal Methodism in
the United States, having a common origin in the Methodist Episcopal
Church organized in 1 784 ; and since the organization of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, South, was consummated in 1845, by the voluntary exercise
of the right of the Southern Annual Conferences, ministers, and members,
to adhere to that communion, it has been an evangelical church, reared on
Scriptural foundations ; and her ministers and members, with those of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, have constituted one Methodist family, though
in distinct ecclesiastical connections.
It was next incumbent on us to consider the questions concerning conflict-
ing claims to church property, and some special cases that could not conven-
iently be referred to the operation of a general rule. There were two princi-
pal questions to be considered with regard to the church property in dispute
between local societies of the two churches :
1. As to the legal ownership of said property.
2. As to whether it will consist with strict equity, or promote Christian
harmony or the cause of religion, to dispossess those societies now using
church property which was originally intended for their use and occupancy,
and of which they have acquired possession, though they may have lost legal
title to it by their transfer from the one church to the other.
lOO THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xi.
We have considered the papers in all cases that have been brought to our
notice. These arose in the following States : Virginia, West Virginia, Mary-
land, Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In respect
of some of these cases, we have given particular directions ; but for all other
cases the Joint Commission unanimously adopted the following:
RULES FOR THE ADJUSTMENT OF ADVERSE CLAIMS TO CHURCH PROPERTY.
Rule I. In cases not adjudicated by the Joint Commission, any society of
either church, constituted according to its Discipline, now occupying the
church property, shall remain in possession thereof; provided that where
there is now, in the same place, a society of more members attached to the
other church, and which has hitherto claimed the use of the property, the
latter shall be entitled to possession.
Rule II. Forasmuch as we have no power to annul decisions respecting
church property made by the State courts, the Joint Commission ordain in
respect thereof :
1. In cases in which such a decision has been made, or in which there
exists an agreement, the same shall be carried out in good faith.
2. In communities where there are two societies — one belonging to the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other to the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South — which have adversely claimed the church property, it is rec-
ommended that, without delay, they amicably compose their differences irre-
spective of the strict legal title, and settle the same according to Christian
principles, the equities of the particular case, and, so far as practicable, ac-
cording to the principle of the foregoing rule. But if such settlement cannot
be speedily made, then the question shall be referred for an equitable decision
to three arbitrators, one to be chosen by each claimant from their respective
societies ; and the two thus chosen shall select a third person not connected
with either of said churches, and the decision of any two of them shall be
final.
3. In communities in which there is but one society. Rule I. shall be faith-
fully observed in the interest of peace and fraternity.
Rule III. Whenever necessary to carry the aforegoing rules into effect,
the legal title to the church property shall be accordingly transferred.
Rule IV. These rules shall take effect immediately.
This was understood to be authoritative and final. The
year following, and upon the acceptance and basis of this
Cape May settlement, the bishops of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church appointed the Rev. Dr. Cyrus D. Foss and
the Hon. Wm. Cumback as fraternal delegates to the ses-
sion of the General Conference of the Southern Church at
THE PUBLISHING HOUSE DEBT. loi
Atlanta in 1878. The addresses of these distinguished
visitors were characterized by a truly fraternal spirit, and
were received with great applause. Responses were made
by the venerable Lovick Pierce, then in his ninety-fourth
year, and by Bishop Paine, who at the time was presiding.
*' The whole scene was morally sublime, and at its close
the conference spontaneously arose and sang the doxol-
ogy."i
At the General Conference of 1874 the first fraternal
address of the British Wesleyan Conference to the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, was received. It was duly
acknowledged and responded to.^
In 1862 the Publishing House, under the management
of Dr. McFerrin, was just getting rid of incumbrances and
embarrassments and entering upon a career of prosperity
and usefulness, when it was seized by the Federal troops.
During the remainder of the war it was used as a United
States printing-office. Owing to the damage of the build-
ings and the destruction of machinery during this period,
and the debt incurred in rebuilding after a destructive fire,
its condition was such that at the General Conference of
1878 its liabilities were found to be about $125,000 in
excess of its total assets. It was declared insolvent. The
Book Committee was authorized by the General Confer-
ence to dispose of machinery, fixtures, furniture, and real
estate, if they deemed it best, in order to meet the obli-
gations of the house. The only hope was to rescue the
credit and save the good name of the church. All felt
that the debt must be paid. But how? What could be
done? The same thought occurred simultaneously to
many : put McFerrin back as Book Agent ; the people all
know him and believe in him ; if any man can save the
1 " Journal of the General Conference of 1878," p. 117.
2 " Journal of the General Conference of 1874," pp. 375-77.
I02 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. xi.
wreck, he can. But he held back. He was too old for such
a burden and such a task. (His age was seventy-one.)
Still the conviction was so general in favor of his election
that he dared not peremptorily decline. When the result
of the ballot was announced, the strong old man wept.^
A Book Committee was selected to reinforce and sup-
port Dr. McFerrin, consisting of some of the very ablest
business men in the whole South. Among these wise
counselors a scheme was devised for bonding the enormous
debt of $356,843, and, after full deliberation and consulta-
,tion, was adopted. But to sell these bonds was the next
thing, and not an easy thing to do. The depressed condi-
tion of the institution, the disheartened state of the church,
and the many opportunities for profitable investment in
other and safer enterprises in the South, made it very
improbable that men of means would be willing to buy
McFerrin's four-percents. The details of the scheme were
explained through the church papers, and the members were
urged to rally with their subscriptions. Nashville Meth-
odists, including the members of the Book Committee and
the Agent, gave the movement a liberal start, and when
the time came for the autumn conferences. Dr. McFerrin
was ready to start out on his great bond campaign. 2
Wherever he went, preachers and people were stirred by
his appeals ; confidence returned by degrees ; the bonds
were taken more and more freely; confidence rose into
enthusiasm ; despair gave way to renewed hope, and hope
to certainty, that the PubHshing House would be saved,
the honor and good name of the church maintained ; and
a grand demonstration was made of the denominational
fealty and latent power of the Southern Methodist people.
To the whole church belongs the honor of this achieve-
1 Fitzgerald's " Life of McFerrin," p. 360.
2 Dr. R. A. Young assisted him in this important work.
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY. 1 03
ment; but to McFerrin's wonderful hold upon the confi-
dence and affection of the church and his masterful lead-
ership, more than to what was done by any other man,
must this deliverance be ascribed. 1
At the General Conference of 1878 Dr. A. W. Wilson
was elected missionary secretary, and served with great
abihty and efficiency during the quadrennium. Dr. O. P.
Fitzgerald was elected editor of the " Nashville Christian
Advocate," and during the twelve years of his incumbency
made one of the brightest, breeziest, and most popular re-
ligious weeklies in the nation. One new conference was
provided for by the General Conference of 1878, the Mon-
tana, and was organized in September, 1879.
When the grand total of the membership was reckoned
up, it was found to be only a little less than 800,000, or,
in exact figures, 798,862.
Through the years following, the progress of the church
was steady and continuous, and her work was rapidly de-
veloping and extending in every direction. Her activities
were continually multiplied. Increasing thousands were
annually gathered within her folds. Her educational zeal
and enterprise received fresh accessions, and her educa-
tional institutions were growing in number and efficiency.
In April, 1874, the cornerstone of the great Vanderbilt
University was laid with impressive ceremonies amid
universal rejoicings. In 1875 her halls were opened for
the reception of students. Students came and have been
coming in increasing numbers and with increasing enthu-
siasm through all the intervening years. In every way
this noble institution has grown, until to-day it is recog-
nized as perhaps the leading institution of learning in the
South, and is second to but few in the nation.
The missionary spirit of the church was much quickened
1 Fitzgerald's " Life of McFerrin," p. 367.
104 ^-^^ METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xi.
and her missionary activities greatly increased during these
years, as we shall see in a later chapter. At no previous
time did the church enjoy richer evidences of the divine
favor or possess in a greater degree the elements of pros-
perity and power. Meanwhile her ranks were filling up
with young men of promise to take the place of the veter-
ans who were dropping out of the ranks. And the veter-
ans were dropping out. The church lost one of her best
and ablest men for every year of the quadrennium 1878-82.
In 1880 Bishop Doggett, a princely man, and a prince
among preachers, after serving his generation by the will
of God, died in peace, and was laid to rest in Hollywood
Cemetery in Richmond, Va.
In February, 1882, just before the meeting of the Gen-
eral Conference, Bishop Wightman, who, by the will of
God, had served two generations, fell asleep and was
gathered to his fathers.
On the first day of the General Conference of 1882, in
Nashville, the Senior Superintendent, Bishop Paine, made
an affecting address to his brethren, and asked that, '' worn
down by age and infirmities, he might be permitted to re-
tire from active service." For sixty-four years he had
been an effective traveHng preacher ; for thirty-six years
an efficient general superintendent. But the limit now
was reached. He was able to bear the burden and do the
work no longer. On May 3, 1882, at the age of eighty-
three, he was retired from active service. On May 22d,
unable to attend further upon the session of the General
Conference, he departed to his home in Mississippi. On
the 19th of October following he departed for his home
beyond the stars.
On the opening day of the General Conference of 1882,
Wednesday, May 3d, Dr. Thomas O.. Summers was, for the
eighth time, elected secretary of that body. On Saturday
DR. THOMAS 0. SUMMERS. IO5
morning, May 6th, immediately after the opening, the pre-
siding bishop announced that Dr. Summers was dead. The
prayer of his favorite hymn was Hterally fulfilled :
Oh, that without a lingering groan
I may the welcome word receive,
My body with my charge lay down,
And cease, at once, to work and live.
Dr. Summers was a born Englishman. His early ad-
vantages were not great. He was a man of prodigious
labor, however, and he came to be a man of extraordinary
attainments and cyclopedic knowledge. He was positive
in his convictions, dogmatic in his utterances, blunt in his
manner ; but he was a true and noble man and a loving-
hearted Christian.
He was for many years the editor of the ** Nashville
Christian Advocate," and for some time the editor of the
'* Southern Methodist Quarterly Review." Only a few of
the older men in the church can remember the time when
he was not Book Editor. He was himself the author of
several books, the best known of which are his Commen-
taries on the New Testament books from Matthew to
Romans, and his able and learned work on Systematic
Theology, in two noble octavo volumes. At the time of
his death he was dean of the theological department of
Vanderbilt University and Professor of Systematic Theol-
ogy. As a preacher his sermons were too dull, and as an
editor his articles were too heavy, to be popular. Yet
for his work and his personal character he had come to be
so beloved that his death fell with the weight of a personal
bereavement upon the whole church. His biography has
been well written by Dr. (now Bishop) Fitzgerald, his
successor in the editorship of the '* Advocate."
The most important action of the General Conference
I06 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xi.
of 1882 was the creation of the Board of Church Exten-
sion and the election of the clear-headed and indefatigable
Dr. David Morton as secretary and general superintendent.
Under the phenomenally successful management of this
man " with a telescopic mind and a microscopic eye," this
arm of church work has developed an efficiency and use-
fulness which far exceed the expectations of its most
sanguine friends and supporters. The General Board was
fully organized and its plans formulated at a meeting held
in Louisville, Ky., in June, 1882. Bylaws were adopted,
a plan of campaign was mapped out, and the first annual
assessment of $50,000 was made. In the eleven years
since the organization of the Board of Church Extension
the total receipts have been considerably over $700,000;
and the last annual report shows that the board has built,
helped to build, or otherwise aided one church for each
week-day and two for each Sunday in the year. The
total number of churches built or aided by the board
since 1882 is 2510. The only serious problem which the
church has in connection with this work is to find a man to
fill Dr. Morton's place and do his work, when age or in-
firmity shall have rendered him incapable of further service.
The General Conference of 1882 authorized the crea-
tion of two new conferences, the Central Mexico Mission
Conference and the Mexican Border Mission Conference,
which were not long afterward organized, the one by
Bishop Keener, the other by Bishop McTyeire.
The unprecedented number of five bishops was elected :
A. W. Wilson, Linus Parker, A. G. Haygood, John C.
Granbery, and Robert K. Hargrove (though Dr. Haygood
declined). Dr. Robt. A. Young was elected missionary
secretary.
The fraternal message of the Methodist Episcopal Church
to the General Conference of 1882 was borne by the ge-
nial and gentle, but able and eloquent Dr. Henry Bascom
THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 107
Ridgaway, and the glowing words of this genuinely fra-
ternal man made and left a delightful impression upon
those who were present, and upon the whole church.
The first Ecumenical Conference of the Methodisms of
the world was held in London in 188 1. In this memor-
able gathering the Southern Methodist Church was fully
and worthily represented. According to the English
papers, that church furnished two of the three American
representatives who made a distinct personal impression.
These were the inimitable and irresistible Dr. John B.
McFerrin and the weighty and dignified Bishop McTyeire,
with his massive head and face and thought, his slow, de-
liberate speech, his fog-horn voice, and his unepiscopal,
unconventional, cutaway coat.
In the General Conference of the Southern Church in
1878 a movement was initiated looking to a centenary
celebration of the organization of American Methodism.
No fact in the history of American Christianity can be
considered of equal importance with that which took place
in an humble chapel in Baltimore in December, 1 784. It
was therefore worthy of commemoration by the Methodists
of a hundred years after. And as that far-reaching event
took place upon Southern territory, it was fitting that the
centenary movement should originate in the Southern
division of Methodism. Accordingly, the bishops of the
Southern Church were requested in behalf of the General
Conference to open a correspondence on the subject with
the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the pres-
idents of the several conferences in Canada, and of all other
Methodist bodies on the continent, and these bishops and
presidents in conjunction were to arrange and mature a
suitable program for a fitting celebration of the centenary
of the organization of American Methodism. The sug-
gestion was concurred in by the other branches of Meth-
odism in the country. The arrangements for the part
I08 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xi.
which the Southern Church was to take were completed
in the General Conference of 1882. The celebration was
duly observed in December, 1884, in the city of Baltimore
by a great gathering of representatives of all the Meth-
odist bodies, white and colored, in America. In the ex-
uberance of fraternal feeling and the tide of spiritual emo-
tion it surpassed any inter- Methodistic gathering that has
been held before or since. It was a veritable love-feast,
not of American Methodists only, but of American Meth-
odisms. Nor was it an enthusiasm of mere emotion, but
of genuine gratitude and practical benevolence. The cen-
tenary year was a season of generous giving upon the part
of Methodists everywhere. The special centennial offer-
ings of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the
year 1884 amounted to $1,382,771.^
In the midst of the activity and enthusiasm of the
centenary year the church was in mourning for the death
of two of her most honored and best beloved bishops.
These were H. H. Kavanaugh, of Kentucky, and George F.
Pierce, of Georgia.
They were both members of the General Conference of
1844 and of every succeeding one down to 1854, when they
were elected* to the episcopal office. At the time of his
death Bishop Kavanaugh was eighty-two years of age
and had been a bishop thirty years ; Bishop Pierce was
seventy-three years of age, and had been a bishop for
thirty years.
In physique, Bishop Kavanaugh was below the ordinary
stature ; but what was lacking in length was made up in
breadth and bulk. His neck was short, his head massive,
his hair short and stiff. His face, though not handsome,
was radiant with imperturbable good-humor. In spirit
1 It was in the centenary year that Bishop McTyeire published his noble
work on " The History of Methodism."
BISHOPS KAVANAUGH AND PIERCE. 109
and manner he was as simple and transparent as a little
child. As a preacher he was unequal. There were times
when his eloquence was rapturous, overwhelming. But
depending, as he did, on the occasion for inspiration, he
sometimes limped in preaching. Nevertheless, his great
power as a preacher gained for him the title of ^* the old
man eloquent." As a presiding officer, he was amiable
to laxity. It is even said that on one or two occasions he
took a little nap while presiding in General Conference.
But he was so beloved that everybody, except perhaps
Bishop Keener, excused and enjoyed these amiable small
faults of the noble old man.
Bishop Pierce, of Georgia, son of Lovick Pierce, was every
way a marvelous man. His form was majestic. He bore
himself like a king. His eye was black and lustrous. His
cheek glowed with the rosy hue of health. His every
movement was grace. His voice was clear and mellow ; its
highest tones were musical and sympathetic. His style was
direct, his metaphors novel and striking, his illustrations
pertinent and persuasive, and his pathos often kindled to
a heat of rapture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Whether before the most cultured audience or the plainest,
he was alike master. He preached in a metropolitan church
with all the ease with which he preached to a congregation
of negro slaves, and he preached to the slaves with as much
beauty and pathos and power as to the great men and
women of the earth.^ I have heard Beecher and Talmage
and Hall and Taylor and Simpson and Spurgeon and Lid-
don and Farrar and Punshon and Parker ; but I was never
so moved, or saw people so moved, by the preaching of
any man as by that of George F. Pierce, of Georgia.
In the next year (1885) occurred the death of one of
the younger bishops, Linus Parker, of Louisiana. He had
1 See Smith's " Life of Bishop Pierce."
no THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap, xl
filled the episcopal office with acceptability for three years.
The death of three bishops within less than a year made
it necessary for the General Conference of 1886 to elect
others. Accordingly four were elected and ordained at
the session in Richmond: W. W. Duncan, Charles B.
Galloway, E. R. Hendrix, and Joseph S. Key.
It is one of the peculiarities and one of the excellen-
cies of the Southern Methodist Church that it avoids all
connection with politics. This very virtue has, however,
sometimes been misunderstood and misinterpreted, and
has given occasion for the charge that the Southern Church
shrinks from committing herself on great social and moral
questions and from taking part in great social and moral
movements. If any denial of that charge were necessary,
the action of the General Conference of 1886 on two of
the most vital moral issues of the day would be a sufficient
refutation.
Their deliverance on the subject of temperance and
prohibition speaks for itself :
We rejoice in the widespread and unprecedented interest, both in the church
and out of it, in behalf of temperance and prohibitory law. The public has
awakened to the necessity of both legal and moral suasion to control the
great evils stimulated and fostered by the liquor traffic. We recognize in
the license system a sin against society. Its essential immorality cannot be
affected by the question whether the license be high or low. The effectual
prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating liquors would
be emancipation from the greatest curse that now afflicts our race. The total
removal of the cause of intemperance is the only remedy. This is the great-
est moral question now before our people. The fact that the people of the
United States spend for strong drink $900,000,000 annually is not the most
important aspect of the subject, but the fact that it is the enemy of the church,
the source of crime, the cause of poverty and suffering, wretchedness and
death, and that its readiest victims are our young men, thousands of whom
are every year swept by it into dissipation, dishonor, debauchery, death, and
damnation. We cannot withhold our emphatic deliverance on the subject,
especially in view of the prevailing agitation of the question of prohibition.
Therefore be it
Resolved, That the General Conference of the M. E. Church, South, is op-
PROHIBITION AND DIVORCE. I I I
posed to the manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating liquors, except for
medicinal and mechanical purposes, and that we will continue to agitate the
subject of prohibition as a great moral question, and will strive, with all good
citizens and by all proper and honorable means, to banish the horrible curse
from our beloved church and country.
Resolved, That the time has now come when the church, through its press
and pulpit, its individual and organized agencies, should speak out in strong
language and stronger action in favor of the total removal of this great evil.l
The General Conference recommended that the Sunday-
school editor statedly provide for a Scripture lesson on
temperance, and that those in charge of schools or colleges
controlled or indorsed by the church, see that the children
and youth are properly instructed touching the effect of
alcoholic stimulants on the human system.
The manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors upon the
part of church-members is absolutely forbidden. The law
is explicit and emphatic : " If any preacher or member shall
engage in the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors
to be used as a beverage, let the Discipline be adminis-
tered as in cases of immorality'''^
The other action of the General Conference of 1886 re-
ferred to above, was upon the subject of divorce. After a
long and strong preamble it was
** Resolved, That no minister of the M. E. Church,
South, knowingly, upon due inquiry, shall solemnize the
marriage of any person who has a divorced wife or hus-
band still hving."^
The increase of the membership of the church during
the quadrennium ending in 1886 was larger than it had
ever been during any similar period in its history. Nearly
200,000 members had been added in that time, and the
grand total rose in the year 1886 to 1,066,377.
The eleventh and last General Conference was held in
1 "Journal of the General Conference of 1886," pp. 198, 199.
2 " Discipline of the M. E. Church, South," p. 129.
3 "Journal of the General Conference of 1886," p. 233.
1 12 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xi.
Centenary Church in the city of St. Louis in May, 1890,
just forty years from the time when the second General
Conference was held in the same city and the same church
(in 1850). The number of delegates in attendance was 294.
Resolutions on worldliness were unanimously adopted, ex-
plicitly condemning ** theater- going, dancing, card-playing,
and the like, as contrary to the spirit of Christianity and
violative of the General Rules and moral discipline of the
church, as also of the vows of our church-members." ^ A
committee of fifteen was appointed to consider and report
on the "state of the church." Their report is a strong,
clear, and ringing document, and but for its length and
the limitations of our space would deserve a place in these
pages. It is given in full in the Discipline of 1890.
On the subject of temperance they vigorously declare
and resolve that *' voluntary total abstinence from all in-
toxicants is the true ground of personal temperance, and
complete legal prohibition of the traffic the duty of gov-
ernment." ^
The phenomenal advance made during the preceding
period of four years, in all departments of church work, is
indicated by the provisions made by the General Confer-
ence for the increased efficiency of all the coordinated
agencies of the church. Two additional secretaries of the
Board of Missions were provided for and elected. An
additional secretary for the Board of Church Extension
was authorized. An assistant Book Agent, an assistant
editor of the " Christian Advocate," and an assistant Sun-
day-school editor were elected by the Conference. The
Book Agents were authorized to publish, as one of the
general organs of the church, the *' Pacific Methodist
Advocate " at San Francisco. The Epworth League was
1 See Discipline, edition of 1890, p. 391.
2 " Journal of General Conference of 1890," p. 212,
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1890. II3
adopted by the General Conference and provision made for
establishing leagues throughout the church. Four new
conferences were constituted and organized in the year
1890-91, the Western North Carolina, the East Columbia,
the New Mexico, and the Northwest Mexican Mission.
The China Mission and the Brazil Mission had been
erected into conferences in 1886, and organized as confer-
ences, the one in 1886, the other in 1887. The church has
now forty-three Annual Conferences. The statistics for the
year 1890 were: traveling preachers, 5042; local preach-
ers, 6366; white and Indian members, 1,206,611 ; colored
members, 534; and altogether, 1,218,561.
A notable incident of the General Conference of 1890
was the reception and address of the Rev. David J. Waller,
the first fraternal delegate of the British Wesleyan Con-
ference to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr.
Waller, both by his personal bearing and his instructive
and courteous address, produced an exceedingly favorable
impression.
At the General Conference of 1890, A. G. Haygood
and D. P. Fitzgerald were elected bishops.
The quadrennium was marked by the death of two of
the very foremost men of the church. In May, 1887, Dr.
McFerrin died, and the funeral sermon was preached by
Bishop McTyeire, who, in less than two years after, fol-
lowed his friend to the undiscovered country.
Bishop McTyeire is buried along with Bishop McKen-
dree and Bishop Soule on the campus of Vanderbilt Uni-
versity. His fitting epitaph is, ** He was a leader of men
and a lover of children."
CHAPTER XII.
THE MISSIONS OF THE CHURCH.
I . Missions to the Negroes.
Up to the outbreak of the war in 1861 the mission work
of the Southern Church was principally confined to the
slave population of the South. The Southern Methodists
recognized this as a vast opportunity, and to this work they
felt themselves specially called. For the most part, the
same pastor preached the gospel to master and slave, in
the same church, as parts of one congregation. The gal-
lery, or some other portion of the church, was set apart for
the slaves. In addition to this, the pastor who preached
to all together in the forenoon of Sunday would preach to
the slaves from the same pulpit in the afternoon. When
special services were held for the colored people, they oc-
cupied the body of the church, while the white people who
attended were seated in that part of the church usually
assigned to the negroes.^ One of the early reports of
the Board of Missions of one of the Southern conferences
has these words : " The gospel is the same for all men,
and to enjoy its privileges in common promotes good- will."
Consequently it was declared to be the duty of all congre-
gations to supply necessary and suitable accommodations
for the colored people, " in order that none of them might
make such neglect a plea for staying away from public
worship." If a separate building was provided for them,
1 See Dr. John's " Handbook of Methodist Missions," p. %l, and
McTyeire's " History of Methodism," p. 584.
114
EARL V A TTEMPTS, 1 1 5
as was sometimes the case, the negro congregation was
an appendage to the white, the pastor usually preaching
once on Sunday for them, holding official meetings with
their leaders, exhorters, and preachers, and administering
discipline.
But large numbers of the slaves were isolated on the
rice, sugar, and cotton plantations, especially in the further
South. The regular ministry did not reach these, inhab-
iting, as they did, a distant and malarial region in which but
few white people were found. Attempts had been made as
early as 1809 to give the gospel to some of these remote
plantation communities. In that year the South Carolina
Conference had sent out two missionaries, James H. Mel-
lard to the slaves on the Savannah River, and James E.
Glenn ^ to those on the Santee. But there were so many
obstacles in the way that the work was soon given up.
The attitude of the Methodists and the Methodist General
Conferences on the subject of slavery gave rise to suspi-
cions and to opposition upon the part of the planters, and
access to their slaves was denied. Later, however, when
the preachers had come to see the necessity of adjusting
themselves to the situation and the legislation of the
General Conference was toned down, as we have related
in Chapter I., the work was taken up again. In 1828,
through the efforts of a pious lady, a large planter gave
his consent that a Methodist preacher should work among
his slaves. This was the Rev. George W. Moore. He
was not regularly appointed by the conference. But this
did not deter him from preaching to these darkened souls
1 " It was Mr. Glenn who received into his home at Cokesbury a young
Vermonter going South in 1821 with shattered health and unsettled religious
principles. This young Northerner was converted and developed in the
South. He became first president of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia,
and died while president of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. No man
had more to do with shaping the life of Stephen Olin than James E. Glenn."
— McTyeire's "History."
Il6 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiL
with all the zeal and faithfulness of a heart that counted no
labor too exacting, no service too lowly, in the cause of his
Master.^ The results of Mr. Moore's preaching to the slaves
were such that application was made by several of the plant-
ers to the South Carolina Conference for missionaries to
be regularly sent to preach to their people. Accordingly
in 1829, through the influence of the Rev. William Capers,
the missionary society of that conference sent out two
preachers for this special work, Rev. John Honour to the
plantations south of the Ashley River, and Rev. John
H. Massey to those south of the Santee.^ Rev. William
Capers was made superintendent of these missions. Mr.
Honour, succumbing to the malaria of the region, died the
same year (1829). *' He was a noble, zealous Christian
minister, not ashamed of the lowly work to which he had
been called, but joyfully resigning even life itself in the
cause." He was succeeded by Rev. George W. Moore.
Rev. James Danelly was sent to a mission on the Savannah
River, and the work extended. The operations of the first
year gathered 417 church-members. The experiment,
eyed with distrust by most of the planters, denounced by
many as a hurtful and perilous innovation, favored by
very few, had been commenced. It was found that the
preaching of the gospel with the simplicity and directness
of the Methodists was understood by the negroes and took
well with them ; that, combined with the regular discipline
of the church, it produced a distinct improvement in their
moral character and habits, making them sober, industri-
ous, honest, and contented. Prejudice fell away little by
little. Doubt and distrust brightened into approval. The
time for enlargement was come. The door of access to
these thousands of Africa's benighted children was open-
1 " The Gospel Among the Slaves," p. 154.
2 Id., p. 155.
UNMONUMENTED HEROES, II7
ing wider and wider.^ The movement, begun in South
Carolina, soon extended throughout the whole connection.
Missions were organized in all the conferences, and men,
carefully chosen for the work, devoted their entire time
to the religious instruction of the slaves. They assembled
them in congregations, preached to them the gospel,
instructed and comforted the penitents, baptized the
converted, organized them into societies, administered to
them the holy communion, visited and prayed with them
in their cabins, ministered to their sick, and buried their
dead. In South CaroHna alone at the time of the death
of Bishop Capers (1854) there were twenty-six mission
stations on the plantations, served by thirty-two regularly
appointed preachers, and counting a membership of over ten
thousand negroes and over a thousand whites, or, in exact
figures, 10,371 of the former and 1175 of the latter. The
contributions of the South Carolina Conference for the work
for that year (1854) amounted to $25,000. Nor was this
difficult and uninviting work left to or thrust upon preachers
of inferior quality or ability. Indeed, the planters declared
that they were unwilling to receive young or indiscreet or
untried men to go in and out among their slaves as their
moral and spiritual advisers. " Some of the best preachers
of Southern Methodism spent their best days in this work,"
says one who had large personal knowledge of the field.
There were W. C. Kirkland (father of the present chan-
cellor of Vanderbilt University), G. W. Moore, Charles
Wilson, Coburn, Boyd, Bunch, Ledbetter, Turpin, Rush,
Skidmore, Carr, Steele, and many others — unmonumented
heroes of earth, whose record is safe in the keeping of God.
It is not possible in the brief space allotted to this history
to recount the toils, the privations, the sufferings, the
1 Dr. Wightman in "Southern Quarterly Review," quoted by McTyeire,
p. 585.
Il8 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xii.
martyr-like self-immolation, the apostolic successes of these
humble Methodist preachers, who, in the isolation of the
remote plantations, amid the pestilential malaria of the
river-bottoms and the rice-swamps of the far South, min-
istered the evangel of divine love and salvation to the
lowly sons and daughters of that benighted race; and
who, away back in those dim and distant years, did more
than all other agencies combined to prepare them for the
responsibilities of freedom and citizenship, as well as for
the kingdom of heaven. A volume might be written of
the Acts of these Apostles to the Southern slaves. In-
deed, such a volume has been written.^ It remains for
some magnanimous negro of the future to propose, and for
his magnanimous fellow-negroes of all classes. North and
South, East and West, to erect, on some suitable spot, a
worthy and enduring monument to the memory of the
noble and self-forgetting Southern Methodist preachers
who, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in
labors, in watchings, in fastings, in weariness and painful-
ness and perils, in honor and dishonor, through evil report
and good report, christianized their fathers.^
Up to the time of the division of the church, in 1844,
these Southern Methodist preachers had gathered into
church-membership over a hundred thousand African
slaves.^ And it was for the opportunity and privilege of
continuing this work that they made their stand in 1844.*
1 " The Gospel Among the Slaves," p. 394, by Miss Annie Maria Barnes
and Dr. W. P. Harrison. Nashville, Barbee & Smith, 1893.
2 " In the neighborhood where I lived during the war in Alabama the sound
of a trumpet would have called up five thousand colored men and not over
fifty white men. The white men had gone off to the war and left their wives,
children, and property in the care of the negroes. Not a crime was com-
mitted."— Dr. R. H. Rivers, in " Central Methodist," January 27, 1894. The
same was true everywhere. To the preaching of the Gospel, as above related,
it was due that the crimes now so frequent were almost unheard of.
3 The number of colored members of the Southern Church in 1846 was
124,961.
* Compare the latter part of Chapter II.
LARGE NUMBER OF CONVERTS. 1 19
In i860, sixteen years after the division, the Southern
Church had upon her rolls nearly a quarter of a million
of these imported heathen people. The official returns
for that year give 207,776 members, with 180,000 negro
children under regular catechetical instruction. Says that
calm and careful historian of Methodism, Bishop McTyeire :
'* The church- membership of all the missionary societies
and stations, in all parts of the world, did not equal the col-
ored membership of Methodism in the Southern States."^
Said another bishop : *' The Southern Church counted
more converts among these descendants of Ham than the
united efforts of Christendom had gathered upon all the
mission-fields of the heathen world." ^ If any man will
furnish reliable facts and figures to contradict or correct
this statement of two of the bishops of the M. E. Church,
South, he shall have our prompt acknowledgment of the
mistake, and our thanks for his kindness. Whether that be
done or not, who is there so destitute of magnanimity, or
even of common fairness and candor, as to refuse to recog-
nize and acknowledge this great service of the Southern
Methodist Church to the negro race, to the country, and
to Christendom?
In addition to their missions to the slaves, the Southern
Church enterprised a mission to China at the first General
Conference, in 1846, and organized that mission in 1848.
Ten years later, when their China mission had gotten into
successful operation, the General Conference of 1858 took
measures for founding missions in Africa and Central
America, But the war prevented the execution of their
plans.^ These facts together will explain how it was that
no other foreign missions were undertaken until after the
war, and will at the same time account for the fact that
1 McTyeire's " History of Methodism," p. 387.
2 " Life of Bishop George F. Pierce," p. 469.
2 See page 68. _
120 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xii.
the present missionary operations of the Southern Church
are not yet so extensive as those of other churches in
different circumstances.
The M. E. Church, South, has one General Board of
Missions. This board has charge of the four missions in
foreign lands, as well as the Indian and German missions
in the home-land, and all other missions not provided for
by the Annual Conferences. In addition to this General
Board, each Annual Conference has a Conference Board,
which has entire control of the missions within its borders
and under its care, as well as of the money raised for their
support. A collection is annually taken for the General
Board in every congregation, and a separate collection
for the use of the Annual Conference Board. The Gen-
eral Board employs three secretaries, who at present are
I. G. John, D.D., H. C. Morrison, D.D., and Rev. Walter R.
Lambuth, M.D., D.D. The church has missions in China,
Japan, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as among the Indians
and Germans of this country, and in many of the Western
States and Territories.
2. The China Mission.
The mission to China was authorized by the first Gen-
eral Conference of the church, in 1846. Two years after-
ward, on April 24, 1848, the Rev. Charles Taylor, M.D.,
and the Rev. Benjamin Jenkins stood with their wives on
the deck of the little ship " Cleone " in Boston Harbor.
A little group of Boston Methodists joined them in singing
the Missionary Hymn and in prayer, and they sailed away
over unknown seas to an unknown world. The cabin of
the '' Cleone " was ten by fourteen feet, and seven feet in
height. The state-rooms were six by four. In such a
vessel they sailed a voyage of four months, and anchored.
PIONEER WORK IN CHINA. 121
August 1 2th, in the harbor of Hong Kong. Afterward
they proceeded to Shanghai, where the mission was to be
established. Here they purchased a lot, built a temporary
dwelling, and went to work. The next year they pur-
chased another lot and built a chapel, in which they held
their first service in January, 1850. They established two
day-schools, gathered thirty scholars, and mingled religious
services with the daily exercises. In 185 1 their Chinese
teacher and his wife renounced Buddhism and became
Christians. This man, Liew, soon became a preacher and
an evangelist, and proclaimed the gospel to hundreds of
his fellow-countrymen. ** His ministry was greatly blessed.
He died in 1866, mourned by missionaries and native
Christians as a great loss to the cause of Christianity."
In 1852 Rev. W. G. E. Cunnyngham, D.D., and his
wife joined the missionary force in China, and became
faithful and efficient workers in that difficult field. These
all remained at their post and continued their work amid
the trials and horrors of the Taiping rebellion in 1853.
Shanghai was crowded with soldiers, and amid the devas-
tations committed by them the two residences of the
missionaries and their chapel were burned. In 1854
Rev. Dr. D. C. Kelley, Rev. J. W. Lambuth, and Rev. J. L.
Belton, with their wives, arrived in China to reinforce the
mission. In December, 1859, Rev. Young J. Allen and
Rev. M. L. Wood sailed from New York for Shanghai.
But while the mission was thus reinforced with new
arrivals, it was weakened by the return of some of the
earlier missionaries, whose health was broken by the rigor
of the climate and the exactions of the work. Mrs. Jenkins
died on her homeward voyage, and was buried at sea.
Mr. Belton arrived in New York in time to die on the soil
of his native land. Dr. Kelley (in 1855) and Dr. Cun-
nyngham (in 1 861) were compelled to return on account
122 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xii.
of the failing health of themselves or their families. None
were now left but Lambuth and Allen and Wood. In
1 86 1 Dr. Lambuth returned to the United States; and
from 1 86 1 to 1864 Allen and Wood were cut off from
communication with the home church and reduced to
great straits. But they continued at their posts and their
work during those years of silence and suspense, support-
ing themselves, in part, by doing literary work for the
Chinese Government. After the war between the States,
the church, impoverished as it was, entered anew upon its
mission work, and other missionaries were sent out. Dr.
Lambuth returned to the field in 1864 and resumed his
work. Mr. Wood returned in 1866. In 1875 Rev. A. P.
Parker joined the mission. In 1876 Bishop Marvin, accom-
panied by Rev. E. R. Hendrix, visited the mission, and
besides leaving great encouragement and blessing behind
for the lonely and weary workers and the converted na-
tives, he completed and compacted the organization of the
mission, ordaining four native preachers as deacons and
two as elders.
After this the following missionaries were sent to the
work in China: Rev. W. R. Lambuth, M.D., in 1877;
C. F. Reid and W. W. Royall in 1880; Geo. R. Loehr in
1 881; D. L. Anderson, O. G. Mingledorf, and W. H.
Park, M.D., in 1883; W. W. Bonnell and Rev. O. A.
Dukes, M.D., in 1885; W. B. Burke in 1887; W. B. Hill
and J. L. Hendry in 1888; H. L. Gray in 1889; B. D.
Lucas, O. E. Brown, T. A. Hearn, L. Leitch, and R. M.
Campbell, M.D., in 1890. This list does not include the
missionaries of the Woman's Board.
In 1886, by order of the General Conference, Bishop
Wilson organized the China Mission Conference.
The following are the statistics for 1893: Number of
missionaries: male, 16; wives, 10. Native preachers : or-
THREE MISSIONS IN MEXICO. 1 23
dained, 4; unordained, 6. Sunday-schools, 23; scholars,
1 1 64; day-schools, 16; pupils, 1572. Communicants and
probationers, 736. Property: churches, 9; value, $22,-
816; parsonages, 14. Total value of church and school
property, $137,311. Appropriation of Board for 1893,
$37>383- Total appropriations, $568,068.
Our mission occupies seven walled cities. The mission-
aries publish two periodicals, that reach the thoughtful
men of the eighteen provinces. We have two boarding-
schools for young men, one of which is the Anglo-Chinese
College at Shanghai. We have a fully equipped hospital
at Suchow in charge of two surgeons, aided by several
assistants. The number of patients treated in 1893 was
12,236.
3. The Missions in Mexico.
Early in 1873 Bishop Keener visited the City of Mexico
and laid the foundations of the Mexican Mission. He
succeeded in purchasing a lot in the heart of the city, near
the College of Mines. He appointed to the work a native
Mexican, Alejo Hernandez, who had been a soldier, a
skeptic, and a prisoner, but who, through reading a book
against Romanism, was led to read the Bible. This awak-
ened him to a sense of his condition and his peril. He
visited a Protestant Church in Brownsville, Texas, where
he '' felt his heart strangely warmed, and went away weep-
ing for joy." He had then, under appointment of Bishop
Marvin, served two years on trial in the Mexican work of
the West Texas Conference before his appointment to
the City of Mexico. In 1873 he was joined by Rev. J. T.
Daves, of the Louisiana Conference. The first society was
organized in the City of Mexico in 1875, ^i^h eighty-three
members, and the work continued.
In 1878 Rev. W. M. Patterson, of the Memphis Confer-
124 ^-^^ METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xii.
ence, was appointed superintendent of the mission. He
began at once to plan wisely and broadly in every way
for the advance of the work. Buildings were procured in
a number of the principal towns, a printing-press was
purchased and put in operation, and at the end of one
year he reported 268 members, 12 native preachers, and
12 teachers. From this impetus the work steadily grew
on through the following years, until at present there are
three regular conferences: the Central Mexico Mission
Conference, the Mexican Border Mission Conference, and
the Northwest Mexican Mission Conference.
The following missionaries are at present engaged in
the Mexican work : A. H. Sutherland, J. W. Grimes, D. F.
Watkins, Geo. B. Winton, J. M. Weems, J. D. Scoggins,
D. W. Carter, S. G. Kilgore, J. F. Corbin, R. C. Elliott,
W. D. King, J. C. Cavener, J. R. Mood.
The statistics for 1892 are as follows: Missionaries, 13;
wives, 10; native preachers, 80; members, 4863; Sun-
day-schools, 153; scholars, 3642; day-schools, 14; pupils,
1 192; churches, 52; value, $92,029; parsonages, 19.
Total value of property, $167,512. Appropriations for
1893, $73>094- Total appropriations to the Mexican
work, $1,125,362.
The three conferences support a weekly paper, " El
Evangelista Mexicano."
4. The Brazil Mission.
The Rev. J. E. Newman, of the Alabama Conference,
removed to Brazil at the close of the war of 1861-65.
He preached and worked, as he was able, among the Eng-
lish-speaking people of the province of San Paulo. Later
he organized a small society there. In 1875 he was rec-
ognized as a missionary of the M. E. Church, South, and
MISSION TO JAPAN. 1 25
appointed superintendent of the work which the church
then undertook in Brazil. In the same year Rev. J. J.
Ransom, of the Tennessee Conference, was appointed to
labor in that empire, and was put in charge of the work in
Rio de Janeiro. In the years following others were sent
out by the Board : J. L. Kennedy, J. W. Tarbaux, H. C.
Tucker, J. W. Wolling, E. A. Tilly, Michael Dickie, John M.
Lauder, R. C. Dickson, J. L. Bruce, and C. B. McFarland.
The mission was organized into an Annual Conference by
Bishop Granbery in 1887.
The statistics for 1893 ^^e as follows: Missionaries, 10;
wives, 9; native preachers, 16; native local preachers, 5;
members, 825 ; Sunday-schools, 11 ; scholars, 441 ; boys'
day-schools, 5 ; pupils, 438.
There is a beautiful stone church in Rio, a comely brick
church in Juiz de Fora, a good brick church in Piracicaba,
and other chapels to the amount of about $75,000 in value.
Total value of church property, $111,626. Contributed
(1893) by the members, $7022. Appropriated by the
Board for 1893, $3i,440- Total appropriations, $326,821.
They have a weekly paper, their conference organ, the
"Expositor Christao," with 1650 subscribers.
5. The Mission to Japan.
The mission to Japan is the youngest of the missions.
The first appropriation was made in 1885. In 1886 Rev.
Dr. J. W. Lambuth, who had previously made a reconnois-
sance of the island, was transferred from China to take
charge in Japan. He was accompanied by Rev. W. R.
Lambuth, M.D., his son, and Rev. O. A. Dukes, M.D. In
September of that year the first meeting of the Japan Mis-
sion was held at Kobe. Bishop Wilson, accompanied by
Rev. Collins Denny, was present. In 1887 the mission re-
126 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH [Chap. xii.
ported 6 foreign members, i Chinese, and i Japanese. In
the beginning of 1888 the missionaries had received into
the church by baptism 64 adults, and had 66 probationers.
The General Board has, at present, 1 8 missionaries in Japan.
Rev. W. R. Lambuth, M.D., at home on leave; Rev.
W. E. Towson, Osaka, Japan; S. H. Wainright, M.D., at
home on leave; Rev. J. C. C. Newton, Kwansei Gakuin,
Kobe, Japan ; Rev. N. W. Utley, Osaka, Japan ; Rev. T.
W. B. Demaree, Kwansei Gakuin, Kobe, Japan ; Rev. B.
W. Waters, Hiroshima, Japan; Rev. C. B. Moseley, Mat-
suyama, Japan; Rev. W. A. Wilson, Oita, Japan; Rev.
Simeon Shaw, Yamaguchi, Japan ; Rev. H. G. Hawkins,
Matsuyama, Japan; Rev. W. A. Davis, Uwajima post-
office, Japan; Rev. J. T. Meyers, Tadotsu post-office,
Kobe, Japan; Rev. C. A. Tague, Iwakuni post-office,
Hiroshima, Japan ; Rev. S. E. Hager, Osaka, Japan ;
W. P. Turner, Kobe, Japan; C. M. Bradbury, Kobe, Japan ;
Rev. B. S. Rayner.
The statistics for 1893 are: Missionaries, 18; wives, 9.
Native preachers : traveling, 6 ; local preachers, 6 ; ex-
horters, 14. Members, 507 ; increase during the year, 57 ;
probationers, 87; Sunday-schools, 42; scholars, 1297;
theological schools, i ; theological students, 1 5 ; boys' day-
schools, 13 ; pupils, 385 ; churches, 5 ; chapels, 26; parson-
ages, 4. Total value of property, $37,366; collections,
$3699.90. In 1892 Dr. J. W. Lambuth died in Japan.
His dying message to the Church was, ** I die at my post.
Send more men."
6. Missions to the Indians.
The Indian Mission Conference is a mixed conference,
having 2000 white members and 10,759 Indian mem-
bers, some pure bloods, some mixed bloods.^ It extends
1 Dr. I, G. John, Missionary Secretary, is my authority for these figures.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
127
over Indian and Oklahoma Territories. There were 1329
additions to the church during the year 1892-93. The
conference has 160 churches, valued at $74,265, and 43
parsonages, valued at $21,194. The Harrell Institute,
under the presidency of Rev. Theodore F. Brewer, has
a faculty of 9 teachers and 250 students. Besides this,
there are four other schools, with 13 teachers and 327
pupils. The conference contributed last year for foreign
missions, $2150.05; for domestic missions, $972; for
church extension, $492.35. Appropriations, 1892-93,
$21,340.
** We have confessedly a larger field and greater success
among the Indians than any other church in the country,"
says Dr. John, Missionary Secretary.
7. German Missions.
The German Mission Conference embraces all the Ger-
man churches in the State of Texas. It was organized in
1874 at Houston. For 1892 it reports 19 missionaries
and 1073 members. It has a college at Fredericksburg,
Texas.
The amount collected by the General Board for the
foreign missions of the church during the year ending
April I, 1893, was $346,572.39- '' The Methodist Review
of Missions," a monthly magazine of sixty-four pages, edited
by Dr. John and Dr. Lambuth and published by the General
Board, is a bright, newsy, attractive, and earnest advocate
of the great cause, and will compare favorably with the
missionary magazines of other churches. Dr. John has
just written and published a volume entitled " A Hand-
book of Methodist Missions " (pp. 604), which is an exceed-
ingly valuable manual.
128 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xii.
8. Woman's Work in the Church}
In April, 1874, largely through the zeal and efforts of
Mrs. M. L. Kelley, some of the Methodist women of Nash-
ville, Tenn., formed themselves into an organization known
as a '* Bible Mission," with two distinct objects : one to
furnish aid and Bible instruction to the poor and destitute
of the city, the other to collect and contribute pecuniary
aid to foreign missionary fields. In three years this soci-
ety secured a home for the poor of the city, founded the
** Mission Home" for fallen women, which has grown into
a large and permanent institution, and contributed $3000
for Christian work among the women of China. To this
work Mrs. Kelley devoted her every treasure, her prayers,
her labor, her child, and her grandchild, both of whom spent
some time in China. Similar societies were about the
same time or soon afterward organized at Warren, Ark.,
in the Broad Street Church in Richmond, Va., at Ma-
con, Ga., Glasgow, Mo., Louisville, Ky., and Franklin, N. C.
For some years before this a society of ladies in New
Orleans had been working for the Mexican Mission. In
1878 there were more than twenty Woman's Missionary
Societies in the Southern Methodist Church. These were
the same year incorporated into one, and the Woman's
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, was organized under a constitution provided by
the General Conference of that year, with Mrs. Juliana
Hayes, of Baltimore, as first president, and Mrs. D. H.
McGavock, of Nashville, Tenn., as corresponding secre-
tary. Miss Lochie Rankin, of Tennessee, was the first
representative of the newly formed society. She was sent
to take charge of a school in Shanghai. This school was
already in existence under the General Board, with an
1 See chapter by Mrs. Black in " Handbook of Methodist Missions."
WOMAN'S PARSONAGE AND HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 129
attendance of 29 pupils and 6 native Bible women. The
first meeting of the General Executive Board of the
Woman's Missionary Society was held in Louisville, Ky.,
in May, 1879. Fifteen conference societies had been
organized, with 219 auxiliaries, numbering 5890 mem-
bers. The receipts for that first year were over $4000.
At the next annual meeting, in Nashville, Tenn., dele-
gates from twenty-two conference societies were pres-
ent, representing 465 auxiliaries and 12,273 members.
The collections for the second year were $13,775. A
second missionary had been sent out in 1879, Miss Dora
Rankin. She joined her sister the same year, and the two
were together put in charge of a new school established at
Nantziang, while the school at Shanghai was put in charge
of Mrs. Lambuth. A generous lady of Baltimore pur-
chased and donated a home for the missionaries in Nantzi-
ang— the " Louise Home." The need of an official organ
was felt, and the ** Woman's Missionary Advocate " was
established at Nashville, with Mrs. F. A. Butler as editor.
From these beginnings the work has grown until now
the society has 2209 auxiliaries with 76,396 members,
and there are flourishing missions and mission schools and
hospitals in China, in South America, and in Mexico. In
the field in China there are 9 missionaries of the Woman's
Board, 52 native teachers, 5 Bible women, 4 boarding-
schools, 33 day-schools, 758 pupils, and i hospital and
dispensary. The points occupied are Shanghai, Nantziang,
Kading, and Suchow.
The work of the Woman's Board in Mexico extends to
a greater number of points. In the Laredo District there
are 5 missionaries, 1 1 teachers, 4 native teachers, 531
pupils. At Saltillo there are 3 missionaries, 5 teachers,
181 pupils. In Durango, i missionary, 3 teachers, 80
pupils. In Chihuahua, 3 missionaries, 3 teachers, 109
I30 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiI.
pupils. In the San Luis Potosi, i missionary, 7 teachers,
158 pupils. In the Mexican work altogether there are
13 missionaries, 32 teachers, ten of whom are natives, and
1 1 7 1 pupils.
In the Brazilian work there are 9 missionaries, 14 teach-
ers, four of whom are native, 3 schools, and 240 pupils.
The points occupied are Piracicaba, in the province of Sao
Paulo, and Rio and Juiz de Fora, in the province of Rio.
The Woman's Board has and supports a school at
Anadarko, in the Indian Territory, which has 4 teachers
and 54 pupils.
In 1890 they had property in China worth $60,000;
in Mexico, $66,300; in Brazil, $45,000; in Indian Ter-
ritory, $5000; total, $176,300. The collections of the
Woman's Society for 1892-93 amounted to $99,289.65. ^
In addition to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society
there is another and a distinct society of women called the
'* Parsonage and Home Mission Society." This was
first organized as the '* Woman's Department of Church
Extension," but was afterward enlarged so as to take in
any work coming under the head of home missions. Its
primary object was to collect funds for the building of
parsonages in needy places, and corresponded in this re-
spect to the work of the Board of Church Extension in
building churches in needy places. Miss Lucinda B.
Helm, of Kentucky, to whose fertile brain the conception
of the plan is due, was the first secretary and general
manager, and under her zealous and successful leadership
the society has grown to be an invaluable adjunct to the
department of church extension.
Since its organization, in 1886, the general society and
its auxiliaries have raised for all purposes $114,000.
They have built or helped to build 550 parsonages, and
1 " Report of the Woman's Missionary Society for 1893," p. 63,
SCARRITT BIBLE AND TRAINING SCHOOL. 131
many of these have been the means of establishing our
church where otherwise it would have had no existence,
or at best a feeble existence.^ The society devotes itself
also to the encouragement and development of local home
mission work, wherever its members may be situated.
The local auxiliary in Nashville, for example, employs
two excellent and intelligent ladies, who have received
special training, in Christian work among the lower classes.
The present general secretary is Mrs. Ruth Scarritt, Kan-
sas City, Mo.
For the special training of women who are preparing
themselves for mission work, either in the home or foreign
field, a school has in the last few years been established
by the women of the church. It is located in Kansas
City, Mo. The beautiful and commanding site upon
which it is located and $25,000 toward the building were
donated by the Rev. Dr. Nathan Scarritt. The women
of the church subsequently raised $25,000, and a build-
ing has been erected which is a model of convenience
and of architectural beauty. It is appropriately named
the ** Scarritt Bible and Training School." The principal
is Miss M. L. Gibson. It has the following departments :
Bible Study, Church History, Moral Philosophy and Chris-
tian Evidences, Nurse Training, Industrial, City Mission
Work, Physical Culture. It has also a hospital depart-
ment and a medical faculty. It corresponds, in part, to
schools for deaconesses in other churches. It Is in its
second year of operation, and is doubtless destined to a
career of enlarging beneficence and blessing iji many ways
and for all time to come.
1 See " Report of Woman's Parsonage and Home Mission Society," p. 34.
CHAPTER XIII.
GENERAL VIEW AND CONCLUSION.
We have now outlined the history of the origin of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a distinct eccle-
siastical body ; its development, growth, and work during
the years of its early prosperity, from 1846 to i860; its
period of depletion, impoverishment, and depression during
and following the war, from 1861 to 1866; its resuscita-
tion and phenomenal growth from 1866 to 1890. It re-
mains to give a brief outline of its present condition, and
to conclude.
While statistics are not an absolutely correct and in-
fallible indication of the actual state and the real forces of
a church, yet, with some general knowledge besides, they
give a fairly proximate idea, and it would be difficult to
form an estimate without them. It has been said that
figures will not lie. But it has also been said that lies
will figure. In one respect the statistics of a church in-
volve an over-statement of its forces and resources, inas-
much as it is certain that not all those who are counted
and who help to swell the numbers are actual Christians
or available and effective helpers in its work. On the
other hand, there are conditions, influences, and elements
of power that cannot be weighed and measured, that can-
not be reduced to arithmetical calculation and tabulation.
So that, on the whole, statistics will at least afford as cor-
rect an estimate of a church's achievements and resources
as can be put in a comprehensive and summary statement.
132
THE LATEST STATISTICS. 1 33
They furnish also a comparative estimate of the work of
the several churches. The old rule, with some grains of
allowance, applies here, that it is as fair for one as it is for
the other.
We are able to give the statistics of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, for the year 1891-92, the re-
turns for 1892-93 not being yet made out.
Traveling Local White Colpred Indian Total
preachers. preachers. members. members. members. membership.
5,368 6,481 1,282,750 357 10,7591 1,305.71s
The year 1893 was one of general revival and large in-
gathering. It is perfectly certain that the total will now
considerably exceed 1,350,000. The Southern Methodists
outnumber any other single Protestant church in the
country except the Baptists, who (without counting the
colored churches) reckon, all told. North and South, about
2,200,000, and the Northern Methodists, who reported
for 1892, probationers, colored members and all, 2,473,159-^
Further statistics for 1 89 1-92 :
SoT ^:?s^.'- ^t^- Cl^-^- Value. ?--- Value. Total
13,426 95,204 754,223 12,856 $20,287,112 3,015 $3,693,436 $23,980,546
Missionary statistics for 1892-93:
Foreign Domestic Woman's Total for Church
Missions. Missions. Board. Missions. Extension.
$346,572.39^ $134,690.74 $99,289,654 $580,552.78 $80,685,855
At least a third of the Church Extension collections was
used on mission fields. This will make over $600,000
raised for mission work in 1892-93.
The conference collections for the superannuated
1 See p. 126 and note.
2 See " Methodist Year-Book" for 1893, p. 49.
3 " Report of Board of Missions for 1893," p. 208.
4 " Report of Woman's Missionary Society," 1893, p. 63.
5 •• Church Extension Bulletin," July, 1893, p. 2.
134 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH, [Chap. xiii.
preachers and the widows and orphans of deceased
preachers for 1891-92 amounted to $148,577.46.
Educational statistics for 1891-92 :
'cSuge?' Teachers. Pupils. VaU,-' Endowmen..
179 897 16,620 $4,485,042 $1,538,000
The history of the church will vindicate the claim that
according to her ability she has been the patron of edu-
cation. Retaining in 1845 possession of the institutions
which were located in her territory, she at once inaugu-
rated and between the years 1 846 and 1 860 carried forward
an educational movement of great vigor and wide extent.
During that period more than thirty schools of collegiate
grade sprang into existence, some with liberal endow-
ments, while the older ones were enlarged or more ade-
quately endowed. The Journal of the General Confer-
ence of 1858 gives the names and statistics of 106 schools
and colleges owned or controlled by the church.^ During
the war all or nearly all these were closed ; many of them
were destroyed. After the devastations of the war, and
under the embarrassments of her impoverished condition,
the church addressed herself to the task of restoring her
educational institutions. Considering the inadequacy of
her resources, her lack of means, and the difficulties to be
overcome, 'her success has not been small. The results of
her earnest efforts have received generous recognition upon
the part of observant men of other churches and sections
and countries. Bishop Merrill, of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, says : " The zeal of our Southern brethren in re-
building their church institutions since the desolations of
the war has been phenomenal. The history of Method-
ism scarcely affords a parallel to the successes they have
achieved." 2 Dr. Waller, the fraternal delegate of the Brit-
1 "Journal of General Conference of 1858," pp. 523-532.
2 " Organic Union of American Methodism," p. 109.
EDVCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 135
ish Wesleyan Conference to the General Conference of the
Southern Church in 1890, said : ** The way in which South-
ern Methodism rose from the ashes after the war is one of
the most remarkable facts in modern church history."
Her leading institution is the Vanderbilt University, at
Nashville, Tenn., representing the munificent gifts of father,
son, and grandson of the great family of that name in the
Knickerbocker State. After this comes Randolph-Macon
College, with its two affiliated fitting-schools and Woman's
College, in Virginia ; Emory College, in Georgia ; Emory
and Henry, in Western Virginia; Wofford, with its two
fitting- schools, in South Carolina ; Trinity, in North Caro-
lina; Central, in Missouri; Southern, in Alabama; South-
western, in Texas ; Wesleyan, in Kentucky ; Millsaps, in
Mississippi ; Centenary, in Louisiana ; Hendrix, in Arkan-
sas ; Pacific, in California. These schools have been and
are more or less crippled for lack of ample endowments.
Most of them have some endowment, and are making
most vigorous and not altogether unsuccessful efforts to
increase it.
Vanderbilt University has property approximating a
million dollars in value and a productive endowment of
$900,000. While this is a good beginning, the Univer-
sity is in great need of at least a miUion more.
The establishment of this institution in the South has
given a great impulse to the cause of education in general,
whose momentum increases with the advancing years. It
created the necessity for a class of training-schools which
are springing up in all parts of the connection to meet the
increasing demand. On the other hand, the University is
furnishing trained teachers for these training-schools, as
well as for chairs in many of the colleges, both in the
church and out of it; who in their turn are preparing stu-
dents for the University and directing them with enthusi-
asm to the halls of their own honored ahna mater.
136 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiii.
Students from the training-schools enter the University
to take the regular course : students from the colleges
enter the higher classes of the undergraduate course, or
take post-graduate or professional courses. The Uni-
versity, on the one hand, and the colleges and training-
schools, on the other, are interdependent, correlative, and
complementary. The University in ever-increasing meas-
ure supplies trained teachers for the colleges and train-
ing-schools, while these in turn supply students for the
University classes, and there is endless and ever-increas-
ing progression.
This correlation, however, has, so far, been only par-
tially realized in practice. The universal appHcation of the
principle would give us a complete, effective, and almost
ideal educational system. This will involve mutual con-
cessions, and the subordination of local and personal to
general interests. For this consummation many of the
leading men are devoutly wishing and hoping, and toward
it they are looking and working.
We have four theological schools : the theological de-
partment of Vanderbilt University, a theological school at
San Luis Potosi, in Mexico, another at Kobe, in Japan,
and the theological department of Paine Institute, for col-
ored preachers.
With all that has been said, our educational institutions,
especially the Colleges and the University, are in great
need of large pecuniary aid, and it must in all candor be
confessed and declared that men of means in the South
have not yet risen to an appreciation of the opportunity
that is set before them, and of the responsibility that is
laid upon them.^
For twelve years after its organization the Methodist
1 It was the purpose of the author to devote a full chapter to the history of
education in the church, but the exigencies of space absolutely forbade it.
PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS. 1 37
Episcopal Church, South, had no pubHshing-house of its
own, for causes given in other parts of this history. In
1862 the nascent institution was taken and used during
the remainder of the war as a United States printing-
office. In 1872 the house was burned. In 1878 its lia-
bilities exceeded its assets by $124,383, and it was de-
clared insolvent. On April i , 1 893, its total assets amounted
to $659,516.58, with an insignificant debt of $13,396.18.
The volume of business for the fiscal year ending April i,
1893, amounted to $343,707.94, out of the profits of
which $17,500 was appropriated for the benefit of worn-
out preachers and the widows and orphans of deceased
preachers. 1 These facts and figures speak for themselves.
*' The Christian Advocate," one of the leading weekHes
of the country, with Dr. E. E. Hoss as editor and Dr.
E. M. Bounds, assistant editor, has a circulation of nearly
25,000. *'The Pacific Methodist Advocate" (San Fran-
cisco), Dr. H. M. DuBose, editor, is the organ of the
church in the West. Both these are the property and
the official organs of the church. Besides these two
there are twenty-seven other papers published as organs
of conferences or by private enterprise. One of these is
in German, one in Spanish, one in Portuguese, two in
Chinese. The church pubHshes a ** Quarterly Review,"
Dr. W. P. Harrison, editor, which will compare favorably
with other church reviews. ** The Methodist Review of
Missions " has been noticed elsewhere. '* The Woman's
Missionary Advocate," edited by Mrs. F. A. Butler, has
a circulation of 13,000, and richly deserves as many more.
The Sunday-school publications, of which Rev. Dr. W. G. E.
Cunnyngham is editor, reach up into the millions.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is at peace
with herself. While her progress has been singularly
1 Report of Barbee and Smith, Agents, for 1892-93.
138 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiii.
beset with difficulties and discouragements from without,
she has been singularly free from dissensions or disturb-
ances within. She has pursued her course and performed
her heaven-appointed work with a unity and continuity
of purpose to which church history affords few paral-
lels. A more homogeneous ecclesiastical community does
not exist on the American continent. Throughout her
entire history her peace has never been disturbed by her-
esy, or by wild and venturesome speculation, or even by
serious doctrinal controversy. She has kept the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace : one body, one Spirit, one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
On this point Bishop Merrill bears generous testimony :
" Soundness of doctrine is maintained with reference to
all that is vital in the Christian system. The Word of
God is laid upon the consciences of the people with its
stern requirements and penalties, as well as with its
promises and grace, as the only standard of moral obli-
gation." ^
The church has studiously and persistently kept her-
self aloof from all entanglements with or interferences in
political matters. This is not because she is insensible of
her position and relations in the world, or indifferent to
these things, but because she believes that the way to
make a good state is to make good citizens, and the way
to make good citizens is to make good men, and the way
to make good men is to hold upon their consciences God's
eternal law of right and God's eternal gospel of grace.
To appeal to poHtical motives or to arouse partisan
passions would seriously if not effectually hinder this
higher and holier work. Hence her doctrine is that the
function of the church and ministry is to take care of the
man ; and the citizen and the state will take care of them-
1 " The Organic Union of American Methodism," p. 108.
HOMOGENEITY OF SOUTHERN METHODISM. 139
selves. She interferes with no man's political liberty;
she neither dictates nor suggests any man's political
action. The conviction is throughly ingrained and univer-
sal that by political interferences she would lose her hold
on men and lessen her power for higher good. Hence her
ministers instinctively abstain even from political allusions.
This does not mean that the church or her ministers are
non-committal and silent upon great moral and social
questions. The caustic deliverances of the last two Gen-
eral Conferences on the question of prohibition, and the
emphatic action of the last one on the subject of divorcey
are proofs to the contrary.
The agitation of certain questions of church polity or
economy, which so seriously disturbs the peace of some
other churches, has not invaded the Southern Methodist
fold. The tendency to Congregationalism, of which so
much has been written in Methodist journals of late, if
in reality it exists at all, exists to a very small extent in
Southern Methodism. The preachers go where they are
sent, even to the barren missions of the remote rural dis-
tricts, and there are many noble and touching examples
of the ancient heroism of the Methodist itinerancy through-
out the South. If any preacher has refused to go to a
** hard appointment," or has afterward left the church on
account of a " hard appointment," since the beginning of
this writer's ministry (1877), he does not know of it. On
the other hand, the wealthy metropolitan congregations
receive and support the ministers who are sent to them,
though sometimes against their choice and judgment.
And in comparatively few instances is any undue press-
ure brought to bear upon the bishop by laymen to control
appointments. Indeed, some of the bishops have said that
the laymen do not give expression to their views and
wishes as frequently and as freely as they ought.
I40 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiii.
Upon the broader and more fundamental matters of
church poHty, as the relations of the different departments
of church government, their functions, powers, and rights,
there is practical unanimity of view. The relations and
prerogatives of the episcopal office, the powers and limita-
tions of the General Conference, the rights and functions
of the body of elders constituting the Annual Confer-
ences, and the rights of individual ministers and private
members — all these are articulately defined and securely
fixed and guarded by the constitution. These definitions
and safeguards are clearly understood by the ministry and
the laity of the church, and are accepted with a consensus
that is little short of unanimity. Witness the vote of the
Annual Conferences creating the veto proviso of the con-
stitution— 2024 yeas to 9 nays.^ There is at present some
little breeze of discussion among the newspapers concern-
ing the criticism of bishops and their official acts, which
is all right and proper ; but it hardly touches the consti-
tutional aspects of the subject, and there is no real demand
for any essential change.
The sphere of woman in the work of the church has
quietly settled itself, and to the entire and unfeigned sat-
isfaction of the women as well as the men. There has
never been the slightest agitation, disturbance, or discon-
tent in the adjustments of this great question in the past;
there is not the slightest at the present.
The colored problem is unknown in the Southern Meth-
odist Church. That problem solved itself long ago, and
quietly. The General Conference, at the request of the
60,000 colored members, set them up as an independent
church in 1870. They have their own conferences, An^
nual and General, they have their own bishops, they
manage their own affairs, they are satisfied, and they are
* See page 90.
FRATERNITY, FEDERATION, FUSION. 14I
doing well. Those who wished to remain in the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, did so without let or hin-
drance. A few so preferred, and our statistics report 357
colored members. But the Southern Church did not in
one sense set off her colored members, she only set them
up, as one of the colored bishops wittily remarked ; and
the " Mother- Church," as they affectionately call us,^ still
takes a parental interest in them and renders them sub-
stantial help. '* It was widely thought," to quote once
more the words of Bishop Merrill, ** that when the Gen-
eral Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, organized this colored church and ordained its
bishops, the chief aim was to get rid of its colored mem-
bership. But better things have come to pass. The
newly opened fountain of liberality is pouring streams of
blessing on the needy. Both churches are to be con-
gratulated." ^
The Southern Methodist Church has fraternal relations
with all Methodisms, and with the leading evangelical
churches of other names and orders. She exchanges
either fraternal messengers or messages with the princi-
pal Methodist bodies, white and colored, of the United
States and Canada, and the Wesleyan Methodist Confer-
ence of Great Britain, with the Northern and Southern
Presbyterians, the Cumberland Presbyterians, and the Bap-
tists.^ As to federation she is, perhaps, over-conservative,
a trifle provincial, but it is to be hoped that ere long she
will be ready to cooperate in the way of federation with
other Methodisms and other evangelical churches, in all
prudent and practicable ways. As to fusion with other
bodies, the mass of her ministry and membership holds
1 See article of Bishop Holsey in " The Independent " for March 5, 1891,
2 " The Organic Union of American Methodism," p. 105.
5 " Handbook of Southern Methodism," pp. 120-128.
142 THE METHODISTS, SOUTH. [Chap. xiii.
that it is safest and best to leave that momentous question
to "the leadings of Providence and the logic of events."
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, along with her
sister evangelical churches, stands for the faith once for all
delivered to the saints, for the pure and simple gospel of
Jesus Christ, and for the conversion of the world ; along
with other Methodist bodies, she stands for every doctrine
of Arminian Wesleyan theology, ** from prevenient grace
to perfect love " ; more than any other church in the
world, she stands for Constitutional Episcopal Methodism.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF NORTH AMERICA.
BY
JAMES BROWN SCOULLER.
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS.
CHAPTER I.
REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN ELEMENT.
The United Presbyterian Church of North America did
not head at a single fountain. Several springs united their
tiny rills at different times to form its stream. It is the
result of several unions, and its antecedents were there-
fore more numerous and fragmentary than those of most
churches. This has thrown a veil of obscurity over much
of its past history, and strangers to its communion are
easily confused in reference to the personality and rela-
tions of its constituents.
It is the principal American representative of the dis-
senting churches of Scotland. The Scots have always been
distinguished for their strength of will and tenacity of pur-
pose, and their willingness to sacrifice rather than to yield
their convictions. This characteristic has shown itself
strongly in their ecclesiastical history, for it has contrib-
uted largely to the existence not only of dissent but of
division and subdivision among the dissenters. These
separate organizations were brought to America, and for
a time kept up their old country disputes, and remained
145
146
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS.
[Chap. i.
antagonistic until, after much deliberation and negotiation,
they were largely gathered into one body. A bird's-eye
view of the tangled history of Scotch dissent will be found
in the note below.^
The oldest of these dissenting churches is the Cove-
nanting, or, as subsequently styled by themselves, the Re-
formed Presbyterian, and it is one of the sources from
which the United Presbyterian Church of North America
has sprung, and its impress is still felt. Its existence may
be said to date from the '' Second Reformation " in Scot-
land (1638-46), because it has always adhered tenaciously
to the attainments made in the National Church at that
time. But in its definite and more independent form it
may be regarded as a result of the badly managed battle
WcBtrytefTftikfem &rD99 dnnnff frw IVetatlc^ yeiaocutlufi.
bat did not oisaoize ua Presbyteij till 174&
EstabHSbed Church, 1837, X?AX
\
AtUirBui^ber.
Every division arose, not from difference in reference to any doctrine of
grace, but from questions connected with the union of church and state.
Last century was marked for its divisions, this one for its unions. Eighty
years ago there were seven distinct Presbyterian organizations in Scotland ;
now there are but three^ with residuary fragments of Covenanters and
Original Seceders.
SCOTTISH COVENANTERS. 1 47
of Bothwell Bridge, fought on Sabbath, June 22, 1679.
The remnant which escaped from that disgraceful rout,
and other sympathizers, banded themselves together under
the guidance of Richard Cameron and Donald Cargill, and
utterly refused to have any religious communion with any
minister who had taken the ** Black Indulgence." And
being soon outlawed, they held secret meetings for coun-
sel and for worship among the hills, and with arms in their
hands, and became popularly known as ** hill men" and
*' mountain men." On the 22d of June, 1680, the first
anniversary of the Bothwell Bridge disaster, they affixed
a declaration to the market- cross of Sanquhar, in which
they formally disowned Charles Stuart as their lawful sov-
ereign, for his perjury, his breach of covenant, and his tyr-
anny ; and also denied the right of James, Duke of York,
to the succession. This was burning the bridge behind
them, and henceforth they neither asked nor received
quarter. A month after this Cameron was surprised and
slain at Airdsmoss, and Cargill was finally hunted down
and executed on the 27th of July, 1681.
This left the Covenanters without a minister, and they
organized a system of societies. Those in the same neigh-
borhood met as best they could, and as often as they
could, for prayer and mutual edification. A plan of cor-
respondence was established, according to which commis-
sioners from all these societies met secretly about every
three months, in a general meeting, which settled the pol-
icy and action of the whole body, and solved questions of
conscience, but never undertook the administration of dis-
cipline or any official work. The first of these general
meetings^ convened at Logan House, in Clydesdale, on
1 The minutes of these meetings were kept by Michael Shields, brother of
the author of the " Hind Let Loose," and may be found in "Faithful Con-
tendings Displayed," published by John Howie in 1780, in Glasgow.
148 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. i.
the 15th of December, 1681. This method of unity and
fraternity was kept up until a Presbytery was organized.
It was also adopted in Ireland and subsequently in America.
The Covenanters would hear no minister preach nor re-
ceive ordination from any one who had taken the " Indul-
gence." This compelled them to do without the seahng
ordinances or to procure a minister from abroad. James
Renwick, a young man of good education and one of their
number, was sent in the autumn of 1682 to the Nether-
lands, where Mr. Cameron had received his ordination.
After spending the winter in the University of Groningen,
he was ordained to the gospel ministry on the loth of
May, 1683, by the Classis of Groningen. While he was
pursuing his studies abroad the General Meeting gave a
regular call to Alexander Peden, Michael Bruce, and Sam-
uel Arnot, Scotch ministers, now refugees in Ireland, to
come and minister to them. But the persecution of this
" contending and suffering remnant " was growing hotter
and hotter, and these ministers declined. Mr. Renwick
returned in September, 1683, and ministered most faith-
fully amidst very many dangers and difficulties. So hos-
tile was the government, and so numerous and vigilant
were its spies, that his first sermon in the fields was not
until the 23d of November, at Darmede. He was repeat-
edly outlawed by proclamation, and every subject was
forbidden '* to harbor him and his followers, or supply
them with meat and drink, but to hunt and pursue them
out of all their dens, caves, and most retired deserts, and
to raise the hue mid cry after them." And such procla-
mations were always vigorously and inhumanly executed ;
and yet they kept the 4th of March, 1685, as "a day of
thanksgiving unto the Lord for the wonderful proofs of
his love and good- will, manifested to a scattered and dis-
tressed remnant in this land, by his delivering of them in
PERSECUTION IN SCOTLAND. 149
several places from the power and rage of enemies when
they were ready to swallow them up."
The death of Charles II. gave them a short breathing-
spell, which they improved by holding a meeting on the
28th of May, 168$, at Blackgannock, where they drafted
a protestation against proclaiming James, Duke of York,
as King of Scotland. As soon as this meeting had ad-
journed, two hundred and twenty men in arms marched
to Sanquhar, where they sang a Psalm, Mr. Renwick made
a prayer, and then they published this protestation and
nailed a copy to the market-cross.
Mr. Renwick was finally captured and taken to Edin-
burgh, and here executed on the nth of February, 1688,
in the twenty-sixth year of his age. And this was the
last life sacrificed to the cause of religious freedom in
Scotland. Alexander Shields, who had been licensed by
some Scottish ministers in London, joined the Covenanters
in December, 1686. William Boyd, educated at their ex-
pense in the Netherlands, was licensed in September, 1687,
by the Classis of Groningen. Thomas Lining was also
sustained by them for four years at universities in Hol-
land, and was ordained in Augu.st, 1688, by the Classis
of Embden, after an examination which extended over
twenty-one days. Providence now brought them relief
by changing their circumstances and surroundings. James
was banished, and William and Mary were brought to the
throne. Persecution ceased, and the *' hill men " were per-
mitted to worship God publicly, and according to the teach-
ings of their own conscience.
After many years of intermission the General Assembly
of the Church of Scotland met again in 1690, and reestab-
lished Presbyterianism. Messrs. Lining, Shields, and Boyd,
with a majority of their followers, united now with the
kirk, but there was a minority which refused to do so,
150 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. i.
because of William's assumption of royal supremacy over
the church. These ** Old Dissenters," as now called, were
again without a minister, and so remained for sixteen
years, but free from persecutions of any kind. In 1706
the Rev. John McMillan, of the Established Church, joined
them and became their minister. In 1 743 he was joined
by the Rev. Thomas Nairne, from the Secession Church,
and they, with the aid of some ruling elders, constituted
themselves, August i, 1743, into a Presbytery, which they
styled the *' Reformed Presbytery." One of their first
acts was to license Alexander Marshall, who had studied
under Mr. McMillan. He was soon afterward ordained
to the ministry, ** having received a call from the United
Societies." May 16, 1744, they licensed, and October
6th following ordained, John Cuthbertson, another of Mr.
McMillan's students.
During the twenty-seven years of persecution in Scot-
land many families of Covenanter sympathies fled for
peace and safety to the north of Ireland, where they settled
in little clusters and were served occasionally by refugee
ministers. About 1662 Rev. David Houstoun fled to and
settled in Ireland, and ministered to them until his death,
in 1696. As early as 1720, and possibly earlier, some of
these families left Ireland and made their homes in Amer-
ica, and from time to time others followed, and in this way
the Covenanting Church was planted in this country. A
few mingled with this migration who came directly from
the west of Scotland, but generally they were from Ireland,
although of Scottish parentage.
These immigrants located principally on the Walkill,
Orange County, N. Y., and in the bounds of the present
counties of Lancaster, Dauphin, York, Adams, Cumber-
land, Franklin, and Fulton, in Pennsylvania, with scatter-
ing families elsewhere, and especially in the interior of
COVENANTER IMMIGRATION. 151
South Carolina. They brought with them their system
of praying societies and a general correspondence, and
soon confederated, and kept themselves distinct from the
Presbyterian churches in their neighborhoods. As many
as could met together in 1743, on the Middle Octorara, in
Lancaster County, and renewed their covenant obligations.
In this they were assisted by the Rev. Alexander Craig-
head, who, although connected with the Presbyterian
Synod of Philadelphia, sympathized with the Covenanters
in their peculiar views and took great interest in their wel-
fare, and for years preached for them considerably, and
for a time actually joined them. He wrote on their be-
half to the Reformed Presbytery in Scotland, and was in-
strumental in procuring them a minister.
In 1750 the Presbytery in Scotland sent the Rev. John
Cuthbertson to visit the societies in Ireland, which had
been without a minister since the death of David Hous-
toun. Here he remained for a year, and then, in obedi-
ence to his Presbytery, came to America. He landed
August 5, 1 75 1, at New Castle, Del, and immediately
commenced an exploration of his missionary field. He
preached almost every day for a time, at Octorara, Pequea,
Paxtang, and across the Susquehanna at Walter Buchan-
an's, Big Spring, Rocky Spring, in the Cove, and returned
by way of Gettysburg and York to his headquarters on
the Octorara. This circuit he made more or less frequently
for twenty years. He also made two or three visits into
the State of New York, and as far as Rhode Island, and
westward as far as Pittsburg. At his preaching-stations
there were no meeting-houses for years. When the weather
permitted they met in " tents," and when it was not pro-
pitious they did the best they could in their cabins. This
*' tent " was pitched in a shady grove, and consisted simply
of a small elevated platform for the minister, where he
152 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. L
could be seen and heard by all ; a board nailed against a
tree supported the Bible, and a few rude benches served
for seats, and some boards overhead protected the minister
from sun and rain. Thus accommodated, they worshiped
a good part of the day.
On the 23d of August, 1752, Mr. Cuthbertson held
his first communion in America. It was at Stony Ridge,
in the Buchanan or Junkin '* tent," now New Kingston,
Cumberland County, Pa. A preparatory fast-day was
observed, tokens of admission were dispensed, and the
services of the Sabbath began early and lasted for ni7ie
hours. He paraphrased the fifteenth Psalm, and preached
from John iii. 35, ''The Father loveth the Son, and hath
given all things into his hands." After the sermon he
prayed and they sang; he then expounded the ordinance,
and debarred from and invited to the tables. The com-
municants came to the tables singing the twenty-fourth
Psalm. After four table services were concluded he gave
a parting exhortation to the communicants and prayed.
After an interval of half an hour he preached again, from
John xvi. 31, '' Jesus answered them. Do ye now believe? "
On Monday he preached from Ephesians v. 15, ** See that
ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." About
two hundred and fifty persons communed, and this must
have comprised very nearly the entire number of adult
Covenanters in Pennsylvania, for the place was central, the
season was pleasant, and they gathered in from their
different settlements, and nearly every adult was a com-
municant.
This was the first time that the followers of Cameron,
Cargill, and Renwick had ever, outside the British Isles,
gathered together around the communion-table of the
Lord, to eat bread and drink wine in commemoration of a
Saviour's love and atoning death. To them it must have
FIRST COMMUNION. 1 53
been a high day. It brought them to a mount of ordi-
nances, and spread for them a table in the wilderness,
giving them thus a tangible evidence of the thoughtfulness
and tender care of the Great Shepherd. It also waked
the memory of other days and of other scenes, and called
up the forms and caresses of loved ones parted with be-
yond the sea. Their tears were doubtless mingled ones
of gladness and of sorrow, half of earth and half of heaven.
Such a scene of gratitude and of praise, of memory and of
tears, must have strengthened every heart and quickened
every grace, and made them to sing, as they never sang
before, that triumphant song which had so often sustained
and cheered their persecuted ancestors when '' mountain
men " in Scotland:
God is our refuge and our strength,
In straits a present aid ;
Therefore, although the earth remove,
We will not be afraid.
Mr. Cuthbertson had now finished the first year of his
missionary labors, during which he preached on a hundred
and twenty days, baptized a hundred and ten children,
married ten couples, and rode on horseback twenty-five
hundred miles. The toil and labor, the difficulties and
dangers of such a year's work cannot now be estimated or
appreciated. He was more than one hundred days in the
saddle ; he had to cross, without the aid of bridge or boat,
streams of considerable volume, and often when greatly
swollen ; he had to pass from one settlement to another
through miles of heavy, unbroken forests, where were the
lair of the wild beast and the wigwam of the cruel redman,
without the advantage of roads, and guided often by the
blazed trees which marked a trail. The summer's sun
and the winter's frost, the drenching rain and the drifting
snow had to be boldly met and patiently endured. His
154 ^-^-^ UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. i.
Studying had to be largely done on horseback, without the
aid of helps, during the tedious hours of his lonely rides.
His food by day and lodgings at night were guiltless of
any special comforts, and barely met the demands of ne-
cessity. And yet this apostolic man toiled on for thirty-
nine years, during which time he preached on twenty-four
hundred and fifty-two days, baptized eighteen hundred
and six children, married two hundred and forty couples,
and rode on horseback about seventy thousand miles, or
nearly equal to three times around the world. His dust
now sleeps on the Octorara's bank, awaiting the resurrec-
tion of the just, and we would gladly bring a flower and
lay it upon his grave in honor of his life, and in token of
gratitude for the privileges which we now enjoy, partly
through his labors and sacrifices,^
He ordained his first bench of ruling elders April 8,
1752, at Rocky Spring, near Chambersburg, Pa. These
were James and George Wilson, of Fulton County, George
Mitchell, of Rocky Spring, and David Dunwoodie and
Jeremiah Morrow, of Adams County. In December of
the same year he ordained several more at Octorara, who
belonged to the stations east of the river. These had not
only a local jurisdiction but also a general supervision over
all the associated societies. For several years only one
communion was held every year, and this was for the
benefit of the whole. A central location was selected
during the pleasant weather of the late summer or early
autumn, and the members from all the stations were ex-
pected to be present and participate, and they were always
received with a large and hearty hospitality by the resi-
dent families. The second communion was on the 14th
1 Mr. Cuthbertson kept a diary in which he carefully recorded every act
and incident. This diary is now in the possession of the Rev. Joseph
Buchanan, of Steubenville, O.
REFORMED PRESBYTERY ORGANIZED. 155
of October, 1753, at Paxtang, Dauphin County, Pa., when
about two hundred communed. The third was at the
same place, on the 25th of August, 1754, when about two
hundred and fifty participated. Mr. Cuthbertson mentions
in his diary that upon this occasion, while engaged in
prayer, asking a blessing upon the use of the bread and
wine, a fearful thunderstorm broke upon them, killing four
horses and a dog some forty yards from the ** tent."
In the spring of 1773 Mr. William Brown, of Paxtang,
went as a commissioner to Ireland to procure two addi-
tional ministers, and was specially instructed to get, if
possible, the Rev. Matthew Lind, pastor at Aghadowey,
Londonderry County, as one of these. Mr. Lind and
Alexander Dobbin, specially licensed and ordained for this
purpose, returned with him. They landed at New Castle,
Del, in December, 1773, and on the loth of March, 1774,
Messrs. Cuthbertson, Lind, and Dobbin, with several ruling
elders, met at Paxtang, six miles east of Harrisburg, Pa.,
and constituted themselves as the Reformed Presbytery of
America. They distributed their labors thus: Mr. Cuth-
bertson to reside on the Middle Octorara, and take charge
of that church and of Muddy Run, in Lancaster County,
and Lower Chanceford, in York County ; Mr. Lind to
locate at Paxtang, and have the pastoral care of that con-
gregation and the one at Stony Ridge, in Cumberland
County ; Mr. Dobbin to reside at Rock Creek, now Gettys-
burg, and serve that church, and also the one at East
Conecocheague, now Greencastle, Franklin County. David
Telfair, of the Burgher Synod of Scotland, who had sup-
plied a Burgher congregation in Shippen Street, Philadel-
phia, for ten years, joined this presbytery on the 12th of
August, 1780.
The most distinctive item in the creed of the Covenanters
was their refusal to profess allegiance to an immoral gov-
156 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. i.
ernment. They not only admitted, but insisted upon it,
that civil government was a divine institution, but at the
same time contended that every system of civil government
was not from God, because " it is not the fact that it does
exist y but its moral character ^ that determiftes whether it
be the ordinance of God or not.'' For their refusal of alle-
giance to the administrations of Charles II. and James II.
they suffered a more cruel and unrelenting persecution
than Roman emperor ever waged against Christianity;
nevertheless they maintained their faith, and when tolera-
tion came under William and Mary, they still refused to
swear allegiance to the British Government because its
sovereign, whether saint or sinner, exercised a royal su-
premacy over the church.
In their new surroundings in America they found many
Associate Presbyterians, or Seceders, from Scotland and
Ireland. In matters of faith and modes of witnessing for
the truth they were at one with them, so when the colonies
asserted their independence of the British crown they felt
that the barrier of political dissent need no longer keep
them apart. Negotiations for a union were at once com-
menced, and about the ist of December, 1781, the Re-
formed Presbytery unanimously adopted the terms of union
offered by the Associate Presbytery of New York, and all
its ministers and fully organized congregations went into
the union, which was consummated October 31, 1782,
and by which the Associate Reformed Church was formed.
Most of the isolated societies which were not under direct
pastoral influence took no part in this union, but went on
as before, and wrote to the fatherland for a supply of min-
isters. In 1 789 the Rev. James Reid, of Scotland, visited
America and examined the whole field from New York to
South Carolina, and then returned home and reported his
observations. The Rev. Mr. McGarragh was sent out in
UNION WITH THE SECEDERS. 157
1 791 from Ireland, and Rev. William King in 1792 from
Scotland. They were authorized to manage the affairs of
the Covenanting Church as a committee of the Presbytery
of Scotland. Others soon joined them, and in 1 798 a new
Reformed Presbytery of America was organized, and through
it the Reformed Presbyterian Church has been continued to
the present time.
CHAPTER II.
THE ASSOCIATE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
In 1690, after the long and sore persecution under
Charles II. and James II. was terminated by the accession
of William and Mary to the throne, Presbyterianism was
reestablished in Scotland. So great was the desire of the
government to avoid as much ecclesiastical excitement as
possible, that the General Assembly allowed several hun-
dred of the Episcopal incumbents to retain their charges,
upon the single condition that they would submit to that
very Presbyterian system which they had helped the per-
secutors to overthrow. Of these men Bishop Burnet says :
** They were the worst preachers I ever heard ; they were
ignorant to a reproach, and many of them were clearly
vicious. They were a disgrace to their orders, and were
indeed the dregs and the refuse of the northern parts.
Those of them that rose above contempt and scandal were
men of such violent tempers that they were as much hated
as the others were despised." The result of such politic
lenity was a rapid growth of error and corruption in the
church, so that within thirty years Professor Simson was
permitted to teach in the divinity chair of Glasgow some
of the worst errors of heathenism, and yet was allowed to
retain the emoluments of his office and remain in the com-
munion of the church until his death.
The church being established by law, the settlement of
its ministers was not by the election of the members, but
by the presentation of a patron. As the corrupt party
158
THE SECESSION IN SCOTLAND. 1 59
increased in number and power they made the system
of patronage more and more oppressive, until the people
ceased to have either power or privilege, and even the poor
boon of remonstrance was withdrawn.
At this stage of affairs some of the evangelical minis-
ters republished ** The Marrow of Modern Divinity," by
Edward Fisher, of England, believing that its circulation
would help the cause of truth. This roused the indignation
of the Moderates, and in the Assembly of 1 720 they con-
demned a number of propositions which they claimed to
have gathered from that book. Against this act twelve
of the most eminent ministers of the church prepared a
" Representation," or explanatory protest. These men
were James Hog, Thomas Boston, John Bonar, John
Williamson, James Kid, Gabriel Wilson, Ebenezer Erskine,
Ralph Erskine, James Wardlaw, Henry Davidson, John
Bathgate, and William Hunter. Their paper was con-
sidered in 1 722, and resulted in the condemnation of the
alleged doctrines of the '* Marrow " ; and, following the
example of Rome in its " Index Expurgatorius," the As-
sembly ** strictly prohibited and discharged all ministers of
the church to use, by writing, preaching, catechising, or
otherwise teaching, either publicly or privately, the posi-
tions condemned, or what may be equivalent to them or
of like tendency, under pain of the censures of the church
conformed to the merit of their offense." The " Repre-
senters " were also rebuked and admonished by the moder-
ator. That the Moderates might have a free and unre-
strained course, the Barrier Act, or Law of Overtures, was
suspended, and protests and dissents were no longer re-
corded.
The evangelical party, being thus shut out from the
judicatories of the church, concluded to carry the cause
into the pulpit. The Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, as modera-
l6o THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
tor, Opened the meeting of the Synod of Perth and Stirl-
ing, on the 1 8th of October, 1732, with a sermon from the
text : " The stone which the builders refused is become
the headstone of the corner " (Psalm cxviii. 22). He
treated of the church as a building, of Christ as the foun-
dation of the building, of the builders, of their error in
refusing Christ, and of the glory to which Christ will be
exalted as the headstone in spite of all the attempts of
these builders to thrust him out of his place. In his re-
marks upon the Jewish builders he said some things that
appeared not very complimentary to some of the builders
before him, and which caused considerable hard feeling
toward the preacher. He was immediately called to an
account for what was regarded as the injurious reflections
contained in his sermon, and after a warm discussion of
three days' continuance he was adjudged by a majority
of six to be rebuked. From this sentence he appealed to
the General Assembly. His son-in-law, the Rev. James
Fisher, joined him in this appeal. Fourteen others dis-
sented and protested, among whom were the Rev. Alex-
ander Moncrieff and the Rev. William Wilson. When
the case came up in the Assembly of May, 1733, Messrs.
Moncrieff and Wilson were denied a hearing in behalf of
their dissent, and Mr. Fisher in support of his protest.
Mr. Erskine alone was heard, and the Assembly sustained
the Synod, and ordered him to be rebuked at their own
bar in order to terminate the process. He submitted to
the rebuke, and then immediately produced a paper in
which he protested against the censure which had been
administered, as importing that he had in his sermon
departed from the Word of God and the standards of the
church. He also claimed that he should '' be at liberty to
preach the same truths of God, and to testify against the
same or like defections of the church upon all proper oc-
SECESSION COMPLETED. l6l
In this protest he was joined by Messrs. Mon-
crieff, Wilson, and Fisher.
The protest was refused a hearing, as was the custom
of that day, and laid upon the table unread. It accident-
ally fell to the floor, and a member near by picked it up
and read it, and then called upon the Assembly to stop
proceedings and take notice of '' the insufferable insult "
offered by the presentation of such a paper. The protest
was then publicly read, and McKerrow says : " The whole
Assembly was in an uproar. A paper containing high
treason against the sovereign or blasphemy against the
majesty of Heaven could not have called forth a greater
burst of indignation." The four brethren were ordered
to appear before the Assembly on the next morning, which
they did, and, refusing to withdraw their paper, were
directed to appear before the Commission in August next,
*' and then show their sorrow for their conduct and mis-
behavior in offering to protest, and in giving in to the
Assembly the paper by them subscribed, and that they
then retract the same." If they refused to do this, the
Commission was directed to proceed to a higher censure.
When the Commission met in August the brethren re-
fused to retract their protest, and were suspended " from
the exercise of the ministerial functions and all the parts
thereof." The brethren continued the exercise of their
ministry without any regard to this act of suspension, and
received considerable encouragement in so doing. At the
meeting of the Commission in November petitions were
sent in from seven synods and a number of presbyteries
in their favor, and a large portion of the Commission were
in favor of delay. A motion to postpone was lost by the
casting vote of the moderator. It was finally carried to
** loose the relation of the said four ministers to their
charges, and declare them no longer ministers of this
1 62 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
church, and to prohibit all ministers of this church to
employ them in any ministerial function." Seven of the
ministers of the Commission protested against this act, and
avowed their willingness to hold ministerial communion
with them.
The four exscinded ministers handed in a paper declaring
themselves under the necessity of SECEDING from the
church, and they soon afterward met and organized as a
Presbytery, which they styled the Associated, and published
what was known as the ** Extra-judicial Testimony." In
this they defended their action on the ground of the evils
in the church, and the fact that they were thrust out
because of their testifying against these evils. They per-
formed no judicial act for three years, hoping that some-
thing would be done by which they could consistently
return to the church. There was a strong evangelical
party in the church which sympathized with them, and
gave very free expression to their sympathy. The As-
sembly of 1734 was somewhat alarmed and anxious as
to the consequences, and tried to conciliate. The Bar-
rier Acts were restored ; the act prohibiting the recording
of reasons of dissent and the act anent the planting of
churches were declared to be *' no longer binding rules of
this church " ; and the Synod of Perth and Stirling was
directed to remove the censures from the four brethren
and to restore them to their charges. The Synod did all
this on the 2d of July, *' with one voice and consent," and
then elected Mr. Erskine, in his absence, to the modera-
tor's chair. The four brethren considered these overtures
of conciliation long and earnestly, and finally concluded
to decline them, upon the simple ground that only some
errors were corrected, while the principle which produced
these errors remained unchanged, and consequently prom-
ised only a temporary peace. The succeeding Assemblies
SECESSION ORGANIZED. 1 63
fully vindicated the Seceders in their course, for some of
the evangelical party felt constrained in a few years to
make another secession and form the Relief Church.
In the summer of 1736 the Associated brethren began
to act judicially as a Presbytery, and on the 3d of De-
cember they emitted an elaborate ''Judicial Testimony."
Little societies quickly sprang up in many places, which
applied to them for ordinances ; and as there were young
men in the universities who sympathized with them, Mr.
Wilson was appointed as their professor of divinity. In
1737 Thomas Mair, of Orwell, and Ralph Erskine, of Dun-
fermline, joined the Presbytery, and in 1738 Thomas
Nairne, of Abbotshall, and James Thompson, of Burntis-
land, making eight in all. The Assembly of 1739 cited
them all to appear and answer for schism, and the eight
brethren presented themselves before the bar of the As-
sembly as a constituted Presbytery, and formally declined
the authority of the judicatories of the church. The As-
sembly of 1 740 proceeded to depose them from the min-
istry, and ordered their expulsion by force from their
churches and manses. This terminated all connection with
the kirk.
The increase of ministers and churches was such that in
1744 there were twenty-six settled charges. These were
so scattered that in that year the body was divided into
three Presbyteries, subordinate to a Synod. During the
next year the question was started as to the lawfulness of
taking certain burgess oaths which contained this clause :
** Here I protest, before God and your lordships, that I
profess and allow with my heart the true religion presently
professed within this realm, and authorized by the laws
thereof; I shall abide thereat, and defend the same to my
life's end, renouncing the Roman religion called Papistry."
The Synod was nearly equally divided as to the lawfulness
1 64 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
of their members' taking this oath. One party insisted
that the expression '* the true religion presently professed "
simply designated the Protestant religion in contradistinc-
tion to the Roman. The other contended that it implied
allegiance to the kirk in its present corrupted condition.
The controversy waxed so hot that in 1 747 the Synod
divided, and the Secession was continued in two branches,
the Burgher and the Anti-Burgher, until September 8,
1820, when they were reunited to form the United Seces-
sion Church.
CHAPTER III.
THE ASSOCIATE CHURCH IN AMERICA.
As early as 1742 the Associate Presbytery of Scotland
received a petition from Londonderry, Chester County,
Pa., asking that an ordained minister or a probationer
might be sent to labor in that district. But the few
brethren had none to send. In 1750 and 1751 petitions
were sent to the Anti- Burgher Synod asking for a supply
for the eastern counties of Pennsylvania. After some fail-
ures to accept appointments, Mr. Alexander Gellatly con-
sented, and was licensed and ordained as the first Associate
missionary to America. The Rev. Andrew Arnot, pastor
at Midholm, offered to go with him, with the liberty of
returning at the end of a year, if he so desired. They
sailed in the summer of 1753, and found a wide and
promising field in the valley of the Susquehanna. On
the 2d of November, 1753, they organized a Presbytery,
which they styled the " Associate Presbytery of Pennsyl-
vania," subordinate to the Associate Anti-Burgher Synod
of Scotland. They were at once invited by the Presbytery
of New Castle of the " New Light " Presbyterian Synod of
New York to cast in their lot with them. This was of
course declined, and that Presbytery forthwith issued a
warning to their congregations against these men as schis-
matics and separatists, and as being heretical on the gospel
offer, the nature of faith, and sundry other things. Mr.
Gellatly answered this warning in a publication of two
hundred and forty pages. Messrs. Finley and Smith, of
165
1 66 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. hi.
the New Castle Presbytery, replied, and Mr. Gellatly fol-
lowed with a second answer of two hundred and three
pages. The controversy was of great service to the new
brethren, for it advertised them very extensively.
In September, 1754, the Rev. James Proudfoot arrived
from Scotland and joined the Presbytery, and Mr. Arnot,
having finished his year, returned to his pastoral charge in
Scotland. The mission of these three men cost the Synod
about five hundred dollars, and, considering the fewness
and the feebleness of its congregations, it was a very gen-
erous contribution to the cause of missions. Mr. Gellatly
was settled over the congregation of Octorara, in Lancas-
ter County, and also over Oxford, in Chester County, until
relieved of the latter by Mr. Henderson. Mr. Proudfit
traveled among the churches for three or four years, and
then settled at Pequea, in Lancaster County. In 1758
Matthew Henderson arrived from Scotland and settled at
Oxford, giving one third of his time to Pencader, in the
edge of the State of Delaware, near the present town of
Newark. On the 12th of March, 1761, Mr. Gellatly died,
and during the same year John Mason, minister, and Rob-
ert Annan and John Smart, licentiates, arrived. Mr. Mason
was immediately settled in New York City, over a congre-
gation which had sent for him ; Mr. Annan was ordained
and installed June 8, 1763, at Marsh Creek, in Adams
County, Pa., and Mr. Smart, after a year or two, returned
to Scotland. In the autumn of 1763 William Marshall
arrived, and was, August 30, 1765, ordained and installed
at Deep Run, in Bucks County, Pa.
Thus far all the Associate ministers were from the Anti-
Burgher Synod of Scotland, but in 1 764 the Rev. Thomas
Clarke, M.D., and over two hundred of his congregation
in Ballybay, Ireland, arrived and finally located in Salem,
N. Y. Dr. Clarke was from the Burgher Presbytery in
THOMAS CLARKE. 1 67
Ireland, which was subordinate to the Burgher Synod of
Scotland, but he did not wish to continue a division in
the Secession, which could have no possible grounds or
significancy in this country, where there were no burgess
oaths, so he applied at once to the Associate Presbytery
of Pennsylvania for admission. After some delay and
considerable negotiations as to terms, he was admitted,
September 2, 1765, upon the following conditions, viz. :
1. That Mr. Clarke shall not, either publicly or privately, justify the bur-
gess oath, or any writing published in defense of it, nor give countenance to
any in taking such a step ; and the Presbytery agrees to drop the whole con-
troversy concerning it.
2. That Mr. Clarke concur with this Presbytery in adhering to the
National Covenant and the Solemn League, with the Bond of renewing the
same, together with the Act, Declaration and Testimony, as they were owned
and professed before the unhappy division, and that he endeavors to prose-
cute the ends of them in his place and station.
3. That Mr. Clarke shall not endeavor to obtain a Presbytery in America
constituted in opposition to this Presbytery, nor countenance any attempt
toward erecting such a Presbytery.
4. That Mr. Clarke shall not preach upon an invitation from people who
are in full communion with or have made application to this Presbytery for
sermon without their allowance, nor countenance any brother in taking such
a step.
5. That Mr. Clarke shall acknowledge that this Presbytery and the Synod
in Scotland, to which it is subordinate, are lawful courts of Jesus Christ ;
and the Presbytery likewise acknowledges that the other Synod is a lawful
court of Christ ; nor do the Presbytery desire that he renounce his subjection
to that Synod according to these terms.
6. That the members of this Presbytery shall not, either publicly or pri-
vately, justify the act condemning the burgess oath, or the censures passed
against some of Mr, Clarke's brethren by their Synod, or justify any writing
in defense of said censures, or countenance any step tending thereto.
7. That the Presbytery and Mr. Clarke shall endeavor to strengthen one
another in pursuance of these terms, and to bring about a general healing of
the unhappy division in a Scriptural way.
8. That our Secession, we must acknowledge, is such as is declared to be
in the ground of secession contained in the first " Testimony," which is ap-
proved of and made judicial in the " Judicial Testimony," and is substan-
tially declared in our Declaration, and so we look upon ourselves as standing
upon the same footing as before the rupture.
l68 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ill.
9. That upon subscribing to these terms the Presbytery and Mr. Clarke
shall in the meantime and henceforward maintain a brotherly communication
with each other.
McKerrow, in his " History of the Secession Church,"
states :
In September, 1765, an application was received from some of the in-
habitants of New Cambridge, in the county of Albany and province of New
York, representing in strong terms their destitute condition with regard to
the gospel, and craving that the Synod (Burgher) would send them without
delay a minister to break among them the bread of life, at the same time
promising to give the person who should be sent a suitable maintenance.
The Synod having taken this position into consideration, as well as the
application formerly made from Philadelphia, resolved both to send an or-
dained minister and a preacher, but delayed making the appointment until
the month of November, when they were again to meet for the dispatch of
business. On the 12th of November the Synod appointed Mr. Telfair to go
on a mission to America early in the spring, and agreed to send with him
Samuel Kinloch, probationer. They were to remain in America till April,
1767, unless the Synod should see fit to recall or extend their appointments.
They were to preach not only at Philadelphia and New Cambridge, but in
any other places where they might find an opening.
In May, 1767, the Synod received letters from the congregations in Phila-
delphia and New Cambridge, expressing their warmest thanks for the bene-
fits they had received from the ministrations of Messrs. Telfair and Kinloch,
and beseeching that the Synod would either permit these brethren to continue
among them, or, should they be removed, that others might be speedily sent
to supply their places.
In the spring of I "]66 Messrs. Telfair and Kinloch arrived,
and the former took charge of the Burgher congregation
in Shippen Street, Philadelphia, while the latter made his
headquarters in New Cambridge, now Cambridge, Wash-
ington County, N. Y. When their appointed year had ex-
pired they concluded to remain permanently in this coun-
try, and made application to the Associate Presbytery of
Pennsylvania for admission to its membership. A meet-
ing of Presbytery was called, to meet June 9, 1767, at
Pequea, Pa., *' that steps might be taken for making the
coalescence between this Presbytery and Mr. Telfair and
OPPOSITION TO UNION WITH BURGHERS. 1 69
Mr. Kinloch complete." The minute of that meeting runs
thus:
They proceeded to consider the terms of agreement between them and the
Rev. Thomas Clarke, of Stillwater in the county of Albany, to which, with
some small variation, the Rev. Mr. Telfair, minister of the gospel in Mon-
teith in Scotland, with Mr. S. Kinloch, probationer, did agree.
This action was not satisfactory to the Anti-Burgher
Synod in Scotland, where the necessities of the case could
neither be understood nor appreciated, and where the
wounds of division and broken friendships still existed;
so at its meeting in 1 770 this coalescence was pointedly
condemned, and three ministers were appointed as new
missionaries to America. They were instructed to require
the Presbytery to ** annul " its union with the Burghers,
and to '' obliterate their minute " respecting it. And if
the Presbytery should refuse to do this, then they and any
of the brethren that chose to join with them should con-
stitute themselves into a new Presbytery and hold no fel-
lowship with the backsliders. A clear indication of the
feeling and temper of the times. John Proudfoot, James
Ramsey, and John Rodgers were appointed to this mis-
sion. The first two declined, and John Smith, of Stirl-
ing, volunteered to go with Mr. Rodgers. They sailed in
the late autumn, and on the 4th of June, 1771, laid their
instructions before the Presbytery at its meeting in
Pequea, Pa. The Presbytery was considerably embarrassed
to know what to do. The congregations in Salem, Cam-
bridge, and Philadelphia were Burgher, but had put them-
selves under the care of the Presbytery. All the other
congregations had been organized under Anti-Burgher
auspices, and yet they all contained more or less Burghers
in their membership. To introduce the old-country con-
troversy into the Presbytery would be sure to stir up strife
and division everywhere. Hence in the first term of union
I70 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iii.
with the three Burgher ministers it is expressly stipulated
that this controversy shall be buried ; and in the third term,
that no antagonistic Burgher Presbytery should ever be
organized.
The question now was to reconcile obedience to the
Synod in Scotland, which, without understanding the exi-
gencies of the case, had issued a peremptory order, and to
preserve peace among themselves and prosper their work.
The Presbyterial record is by no means clear and definite,
and reads thus :
The Presbytery met at Mr. Proudfoot's house in the evening of the 5th of
June, and constituted with prayer ut supra sederunt excepting the elder.
They entered upon the consideration of the instructions given by the Synod
to Messrs. Rodgers and Smith, and after long reasoning on that head, and
application by a brother to the throne of grace for direction, they find that
in making the coalescence with the Burgher brethren they have taken some
steps inconsistent with their subordination to the Synod to which they have
been and are subordinate, and they are determined that for the future they
shall have no ministerial communion with them until they lay the case before
the Synod and receive instructions from them. But they do not judge it for
edification, in their present peculiar circumstances, explicitly to comply with
the Synod's demand, which motion was unanimously agreed to by the Pres-
bytery. And Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Smith, recognizing that the Synod's
demand was materially granted, and being extremely loath to pursue any
measures that might impede general edification, took their seats in the Pres-
bytery.
In other words, we cannot '' annul " and '' obliterate "
what is past, but all such cases in the future shall be re-
ferred first to the Synod. This is in accordance with
the facts. Mr. Kinloch had already, in 1 769, returned to
Scotland, and was now pastor of the Burgher congrega-
tion in Paisley, where he remained for many years. Mr.
Telfair had also returned to Scotland and resumed his
charge at the Bridge of Teith, and actually offered infor-
mation in the matter to the Synod in 1770, and they re-
fused to hear him. So Dr. Clarke, of Salem, was the only
one of the Burgher ministers left, and his connection with
INCREASE OF MINISTERS. 17I
the Presbytery was never disturbed or questioned. Dr.
Annan, who was present in the meeting of the Presby-
tery, makes this comment : " The two gentlemen behaved
prudently; they did not insist on their instructions, and
the Presbytery, without a dissenting voice, declared against
obeying them." This ended the Burgher controversy in
America, and the Secession Church here has ever since
been one ; although the ministers received from abroad
were all from the Anti-Burgher Church up to the events
of 1782, and the rebuilding of the Associate Church in
America after that was from the same source. When
Burgher ministers began to immigrate, after the Revolu-
tionary War was closed, they connected with the Associate
Reformed Church.
Mr. Smith soon settled on the Octorara, Mr. Rodgers at
Big Spring, Cumberland County. In 1772 James Clark-
son arrived, and settled during the next year at Muddy
Creek, York County. In 1773 William Logan came and
settled at Mexico, Juniata County, and John Murray at
Marsh Creek, Adams County. Several others came from
Ireland. David Annan, a young brother of Dr. Robert,
came from Scotland, and was principally educated in this
country, and was ordained in 1778, and settled at Peter-
borough, in New Hampshire. The increase of ministers
and the great inconvenience of their meeting together in
one place led to a division of the Presbytery, and those in
New York and New England were organized on the 20th
of May, 1776, as the Presbytery of New York, coordinate
with the Presbytery of Pennsylvania, and subordinate to
the Synod of Scotland.
In the struggle between the colonies and Great Brit-
ain all the ministers of the Associate and the Reformed
churches joined heartily with the former. On the 2d of
July, 1777, Mr. Cuthbertson preached to a large congre-
172 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iii.
gation of Covenanters, from Jeremiah iv. 2, and then led
them in taking an oath of fidelity to the struggHng col-
onies ; and Drs. Mason and Annan were particularly for-
ward in the exhibition of their patriotism, and both served
for a time as chaplains in the Continental army. The
idea very soon and very naturally suggested itself to these
men, that if poHtical independence of foreign control would
be a good thing, ecclesiastical independence of a far-off
power would not be a bad thing. The question was at
once started, and mainly urged by Dr. Annan, whether
both branches of Scottish Dissenters in this country could
not be united so as to form one national church organiza-
tion, independent in government of all foreign control — a
free church in a free state. To this end overtures were
made to the Reformed brethren, and kindly entertained.
The first conference of this subject was held September
30, 1777, in Donegal, Lancaster County, Pa., and others
were held from time to time until the spring of 1780,
when the Associate Presbytery of New York adopted cer-
tain terms previously discussed, which were sent to the
other presbyteries for concurrence. The Reformed Pres-
bytery, November 29, 1781, adopted the same, as follows:
1. That Jesus Christ died for the elect.
2. That there is an appropriation in the nature of faith.
3. That the gospel is addressed indiscriminately to sinners of mankind.
4. That the righteousness of Christ is the alone condition of the covenant
of grace.
5. That civil government originates with God, the Creator, and not with
Christ, the Mediator.
6. That the administration of the kingdom of Providence is given into the
hands of Jesus Christ, the Mediator ; and magistry, the ordinance appointed
by the Moral Governor of the world, to be the prop of civil order among
men as well as other things, is rendered subservient by the Mediator to the
welfare of his spiritual kingdom, the church, and has the sanctified use of it
and of every common benefit, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7. That the law of nature and the moral law revealed in the Scriptures are
substantially the same, although the latter expresses the will of God more
evidently and clearly than the former ; and therefore magistrates among
UNION OF COVENANTERS AND SECEDERS. I 73
Christians ought to be regulated by the general directory of the Word as to
the execution of their office.
8. That the qualifications of justice, veracity, etc., required in the law of
nature for the being of a magistrate, are also more explicitly revealed as
necessary in the Holy Scriptures. But a religious test, any further than an
oath of fidelity, can never be essentially necessary for the being of a magis-
trate, except where the people make a condition of government.
9. That both parties, when united, shall adhere to the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith, the Catechisms, the Directory for Worship, and propositions
concerning church government.
10. That they shall claim the full exercise of church discipline, without
dependence upon foreign judicatories.
These propositions had been formulated in 1779, at
Pequea, and soon afterward the Presbytery of Pennsyl-
vania adopted the first five and postponed the considera-
tion of the others. On the 13th of June, 1 782, the Presby-
tery took final action, and as a substitute for the remaining
propositions adopted the following, which was regarded
by all as being of similar import, viz. :
1. Election, redemption, and application are of equal extent, and for the
elect alone.
2. Magistry is derived from God, as the Creator and Governor of the
world, and the profession of the true religion is not essential to the being of
civil magistrates ; and whereas protection and allegiance are reciprocal, and
as the United States of America, while they protect us in life and property,
at the same time do not impose anything sinful on us, we therefore judge
it our duty to acknowledge the government of these States in all lawful com-
mands ; that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and
honesty.
3. The above proposition is not to be understood to contradict that propo-
sition relative to civil government, in which the Associate Presbytery of New
York and the Reformed Presbytery have agreed, but only as a plain and un-
disguised explication of one point of truth, in which we have the best reason
to suppose that the whole body is united.
4. As no opposition in sentiment relative to the important duty of cove-
nanting appears on either side, it is mutually agreed that the consideration
of it be referred to the counsels and deliberations of the whole body.
5. Though no real or practical subordination of the Presbytery to the Asso-
ciate Synod of Edinburgh, in a consistency with Presbyterian government,
can be pleaded, yet, from the most wise and important considerations, the
former connections, whatever they may have been, shall remain as before,
notwithstanding this coalescence.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ASSOCIATE CHURCH AFTER 1 782.
This basis of union was not adopted unanimously by
the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania at its meeting
in June, 1782. Mr. Marshall, of Philadelphia, and Mr.
Clarkson, of York County, ministers, and Messrs. Robert
Hunter, James Thompson, and Alexander Moor, ruling
elders, protested against it and appealed to the Associate
Synod of Scotland. This protest was at first admitted by
the Presbytery, but on a review of it, as it contained an
appeal, it was refused admittance because the majority
would no longer acknowledge their subordination to any
foreign court. The protestors then withdrew, and elected
a new moderator and clerk, and claimed to be the true
and original Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, on the
ground of their loyalty to the faith and discipline of the
Associate Church. Their appeal was heard by the Synod
in Scotland, and their conduct was approved, and new
missionaries were sent out to them to aid in rebuilding the
cause. John Anderson arrived in 1 783, Thomas Beveridge
in 1 784, David Goodwillie and Archibald Whyle in 1 788,
John Cree and David Somerville in 1790, Robert Laing
in 1795, John Banks in 1796. In 1789 Mr. Henderson
returned to them from the Associate Reformed Church,
and Mr. Smith in 1795.
In the summer of 1 784 the Presbytery resolved to pre-
pare a " Testimony " suited to their circumstances in this
country, and appointed Messrs. Anderson and Beveridge
174
TESTIMONY— CO VENANTING. I 7 5
to draft it. A " Narrative " and " Testimony " were pre-
pared, principally by Mr. Beveridge, and enacted and pub-
lished the same year. The subordination of the Presbytery
to the Synod in Scotland was found at once to be incon-
venient and disadvantageous. It was too far away, too
difficult of access, and too ignorant of local surroundings
and emergencies. So the Presbytery adopted the " Testi-
mony " without consulting the Synod. For this independ-
ent action considerable dissatisfaction was expressed, and
an act was adopted in 1 786 by the Synod upon the subject ;
but, realizing some of the difficulties in the way, it claimed
very little more than what might be called brotherly over-
sight which one church might exercise over another. The
subordination of the Presbytery to the Synod in Scotland
was never of any practical importance, and soon became
virtually a dead letter.
In 1 79 1 the Presbytery passed an act respecting public
covenanting, in which it was claimed that the obHgations
of the Scottish Covenants descended to the posterity of
those that joined in them. This act was afterward incor-
porated in the " Testimony," and so remained as an organic
feature of the church, and in 1792 the members of the
Presbytery engaged in the duty of covenanting in con-
nection with the congregation in New York. And when
the Presbytery had grown into a Synod, it, at Pittsburg
in 1829, and again in Philadelphia in 1830, also engaged
in public solemn covenanting. One great design of the
Synod in doing this was to encourage their congregations
to follow their example. How far this design was success-
ful there are no means of ascertaining, but it is believed
that at different times this ordinance has been observed in
a majority of the oldest and largest congregations of the
church.
In 1 796 the Presbytery passed an act against occasional
176 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
communion, which ever afterward remained the law of
the church. FeeHng that the supply of ministers from
abroad was inadequate to their wants, the Presbytery took
measures to encourage young men to seek the ministry,
and, as an aid thereto, they elected, April 21, 1794, Dr.
John Anderson, of Service, Beaver County, Pa., their pro-
fessor of theology, and erected a two-story building as a
dormitory for the students. He continued to discharge
the duties of his office as sole professor until 1819, when
the infirmities of age compelled him to resign.
In answer to an application made by sundry individuals
in the State of Kentucky to the General Associate Synod
of Scotland, Andrew Fulton and Robert Armstrong were
sent out as missionaries in the autumn of 1797, and in the
spring of 1 798 arrived at their field of labor. After sur-
veying their ground in Kentucky and Tennessee, they or-
ganized themselves, according to synodic direction, into a
Presbytery, the Associate Presbytery of Kentucky, Novem-
ber 28, 1798, coordinate with the Presbytery of Pennsyl-
vania and subordinate to the Associate Synod of Edin-
burgh, Scotland.
In consequence of the scattered condition of the congre-
gations and ministers of the Presbytery of Pennsylvania,
they could rarely meet oftener than once a year, and not
all of them even then ; so most of the ordinary business
was transacted at what were called interim meetings, where
two or three neighboring ministers with their elders were
allowed to meet at their convenience and attend to local
business. This arrangement was not exactly Presbyterian,
and did not give complete satisfaction, and the Presbytery
at its meeting in Philadelphia, May i, 1800,
Resolved, That this Presbytery will, if the Lord permit, constitute them-
selves into a Synod, or Court of Review, known and designated by the name
of the Associate Synod of North America, at next ordinary meeting, which is
SYNOD ORGANIZED— SLAVERY, 177
appointed to be held at Philadelphia the third Wednesday of May, 1801, at
eleven o'clock; that Mr. Marshall open the meeting with a sermon, and
then constitute the Synod, the rest of the day to be employed in solemn
prayer and fasting, Mr. J. Smith to pray first, and then Mr. Clarkson,
Mr. Pringle to close.
The Presbytery of Kentucky agreed to cooperate in this
movement.
The Synod met May 2, 1801, in Philadelphia, and was
opened and constituted as arranged, and John Smith was
elected moderator and Francis Pringle stated clerk. The
Synod was divided into the four Presbyteries of Cam-
bridge, Philadelphia, Chartiers, and Kentucky. The Synod
enacted, *' That none be licensed to preach the gospel, or
ordained to the office of the holy ministry among us, but
such as have sworn the Covenant engagements entered
into in the Secession Church, or declare their readiness to
do so when opportunity offers, and subscribe said declara-
tion." This remained the law of the church for many
years, and was never repealed, although it finally became
inoperative through neglect. Ministers continued to ar-
rive from Scotland and Ireland, and others were educated
at the seminary at Service, and the church grew slowly
but steadily, and new Presbyteries were erected from time
to time as needed. The territorial extent of the church
became so great that the question of dividing into sub-
synods was twice submitted to the church in overture, and
both times rejected.
Messrs. Fulton and Armstrong had not been two years
in Kentucky until they felt painfully the evil of slave-
holding, and applied to the Synod to issue a warning in
reference to it. The Synod complied with the request,
and pronounced slaveholding a moral evil, and urged the
necessity of fully instructing the people in reference to its
nature. This the brethren in Kentucky tried faithfully
178 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
to do, but with very little apparent success, and those of
antislavery views began to move north of the Ohio River.
Finally, in 181 5, Mr. Fulton followed with the remaining
part of his congregation to Jefferson County, Ind., and Mr.
Armstrong took his to Greene County, O. This solved
the question pretty thoroughly as far as Kentucky was
concerned; but sundry congregations had been organized
farther south, and the Presbytery of the Carolinas had
been erected in 1803. The difficulty continued, but the
location was changed. There were congregations in the
States of Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina,
and they were involving themselves more and more with
slavery. Some of the people in Greene County, O., who
had removed from Kentucky, petitioned the Synod in
1808 to exclude slaveholders from the communion of the
church. This led to the adoption of an act in 1 8 1 1 which
declared it to be a moral evil to hold negroes in bondage,
and directed the members of the church to set them at
liberty, or, if this could not be done according to the laws
of the State, to treat them as if free in respect to food,
clothing, instruction, and wages. It was also enacted that
those who refused to comply with these directions were
unworthy of the fellowship of the church. The provisions
of this act were not complied with, and the subject kept
troubhng the Synod from time to time until 1831, when
a more stringent act was passed, by which all slaveholders
were forthwith excluded from communion. This act was
regarded by a very respectable minority of the Synod as
harsh and severe, and practically accomplished nothing. In
1840 a letter was addressed to the congregations of the
South, in which allowance was made for those who could
not emancipate their slaves, provided they would agree to
what was called moral emancipation. The moderator, the
Rev. Thomas S. Kendall, was sent as a commissioner from
SYMPATHY WITH PROFESSOR PAXTON. 179
Synod to read this letter to the congregations ; but instead
of conciliating the feelings of those holding slaves, a riot
was excited in one of the congregations in South Carolina,
and while he was engaged in the public worship they seized
him, and by an act of lynch law expelled him from the
State. This brought on a crisis, and the Presbytery of
the Carolinas declared itself independent of the Synod.
Many of the ministers moved north, and a large part of
the members, preferring their church to slavery, passed to
north of the Ohio River, and planted new congregations
and strengthened old ones in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Iowa. The church was thus completely and permanently
purged of the sin of slavery.
The Synod did not have any fixed and definite rules of
discipline, but followed custom and tradition until 181 7,
when the first Book of Discipline was adopted. It con-
tained a chapter on ** censurable offenses," among which
were enumerated profaning the Sabbath, the use of spirit-
uous liquors, profaning the name of God in common con-
versation, the abuse of lots, the use of charms, the diver-
sions of the stage, and promiscuous dancing.
In 1820 the two branches of the Secession in Scotland
united and formed the United Secession Church. Against
this union Professor Paxton and eight other ministers of
the Anti-Burghers protested, and refused to enter. Pre-
vious to this, in 1806, when the Anti-Burgher Synod
adopted a *' New Testimony," Dr. McCree and four others
left that church and constituted themselves as the Consti-
tutional Presbytery. In 1827 Professor Paxton's party
united with this Presbytery and formed the Synod of
Original Seceders. The Synod in this country was very
much excited over the union of 1820, because of their
intimate relation to one of the contracting parties, and
debated the matter year after year until 1826, when, by
l8o THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
the casting vote of the moderator, they condemned the
"said union, as a defection from a covenanted reforma-
tion," and at the next meeting resolved to continue in
union with the Protestors, and in 1832 with the Original
Seceders. In 1852 the Original Seceders united with the
Free Church of Scotland, which threw the Synod in this
country out of union with any Scottish organization; and
as the churches in the two countries had gradually grown
somewhat apart, no further union was ever sought. The
Secession Churches in Scotland became a little more kindly
in feeling and liberal in opinion as time passed on, while
the Synod in America retained substantially its original
conservatism.
The Associate Reformed Synod of the West in 1820,
one year after its organization as an independent Synod,
asked the Associate Synod for a conference on the subject
of a union of the two Synods. The request was granted,
and conferees were appointed by both bodies. They met
and agreed upon a basis of six short articles, but the As-
sociate Synod failed to confirm the terms, and the whole
matter fell through. The perpetual obligation of the Scot-
tish Covenants seemed to present the greatest difficulty in
the way of union. But the real difficulty arose from the
fact that the Synods were a Httle shy of each other, and
while they felt their oneness and realized the duty of
union, they did not have that full and generous confidence
in each other which might be necessary for a hearty union.
Old sores are hard to heal.
In 1 84 1 a difficulty of ten years' growth finally termi-
nated in a schism, and an independent Synod, under the
leadership of Alexander Bullions, D.D., and Rev. Andrew
Stark, LL.D., was organized. But time mollified feelings,
and in 1854 a happy reunion was consummated. A
minute history of its causes and successive steps is not
REFORMED DISSENTING PRESBYTERY. l8l
necessary in this place. The controversy involved some
important principles in church government, and of sub-
mission to lawful authority, even when not lovingly ad-
ministered. But no doctrine of grace or distinctive prin-
ciple of the church was ever brought into question. It is
also a pleasure for the historian to be able to state that all
the prominent actors on both sides were good men, and
that the Holy Spirit set the seal of his approval most un-
equivocally upon the general work of their lives. The
treasure, however, was in earthen vessels, and, like Moses
and David and Peter, these men had their infirmities and
weaknesses ; but '' he that is without sin among you, let
him first cast a stone."
In 1799 the Associate Reformed Church adopted its
" Constitution and Standards," and it modified the doc-
trine of the Westminster Confession of Faith '' concerning
the power of the civil magistrate in matters of religion."
Against this action Rev. Alexander McCoy and Rev.
Robert Warwick protested and withdrew, and, January,
1 80 1, organized an independent Presbytery, which they
named the Reformed Disse^iting Presbytery. It was con-
fined to western Pennsylvania and Ohio, and in 185 1 united
with the Associate Synod.
In 1840 the Synod passed an act respecting the traffic
in ardent spirits, '* advising that no member of the church
retail them for ordinary use, and that sessions deal with
such members of the church as may be engaged in such
traffic, in order to induce them to desist, and that all
members of the church refuse any encouragement to those
who follow such an employment." In 1843 further action
was taken on this subject, and it was unanimously resolved
" that church sessions be directed to deal with such mem-
bers of the church as are found engaged in the manufacture
or vending of ardent spirits under such circumstances as
1 82 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
are calculated to bring a reproach upon their profession,
and thus constitute an offense in the Scriptural sense of
the term, and that such persons be required to abandon
it." And in 1857 it was further declared, ''that, in the
judgment of this Synod, the manufacturing or vending of
intoxicating liquors, for the purpose of being used as a
common beverage, is a censurable offense."
The Associate Synod in Scotland at an early period of
its existence condemned the masonic oath as sinful, both
as to its matter and form, and warned all its members
against any connection with masonic lodges. This was
received as part of the church's inherited faith in this
country, and all freemasons have been carefully excluded
from the communion of the Associate Church. At the
time of the Morgan abduction the Synod in this country
repeated the warning against masonry ; and in 1 846 it was
further declared '' that we regard connection with the
Order of Odd Fellows in the same light as with free-
masons, and equally deserving the censure of the church."
A warning was also issued at this time against connec-
tion with the Order of the Sons of Temperance, because
of their vain parades at funerals and processions, their
secrecy, the danger of such societies to the community,
and the countenance which they give to other societies of
a worse character.
In 1842 the Synod entered upon the foreign missionary
work, and selected the island of Trinidad as the field of
labor. From various causes the enterprise did not prove
a success, and they passed over their mission to the Free
Church of Scotland and withdrew. They then turned to
India, and located at Sialkot, where they were greatly
blessed, and the field and work have widened and prospered
ever since.
Secession churches are under a constitutional necessity
PSALMOD V— UNION, 1 8 3
of being witnessing and testimony-bearing churches, so as
to exhibit and illustrate the ground of their independent
existence, and their right to exist. The Associate Synod
was always true to its ecclesiastical parentage, ready to
give a reason for its faith, and outspoken in its defense of
the truth as it saw the truth. It had convictions, clear
convictions, and courage to maintain them. It testified
freely upon different occasions against prevailing evils as
they exhibited themselves in church, state, and society.
The Associate Church always enjoined the exclusive use
of the inspired Psalter in all formal praise services. The
Scotch version of the Book of Psalms came with the church
to this country, and ever remained in use, both because of
personal attachment to it from long familiarity and tender
associations, and also because it was the most accurate
versification of the original to be had. But with the in-
creasing culture of the times and improvement in song
there came a felt necessity for something better, and under
the direction of Synod Dr. Beveridge and others devoted
much time and study to the accomplishment of something
in this direction. Some progress was made when the union
which absorbed the Synod passed this matter over to the
new church organization.
The Associate Reformed Church in 1842 made over-
tures to the Associate Church for an organic union. After
fourteen years of negotiation, the latter, in 1856, tendered
to the former a basis of union, which was adopted in 1857,
and a union was consummated in May, 1858, which formed
the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The
Associate Church contributed to the new organization 230
ministers, about 300 congregations, and 25,000 communi-
cants. Eleven ministers and a few small congregations
refused to enter the union, and have perpetuated a resid-
uary church, which has not increased much.
CHAPTER V.
THE ASSOCIATE REFORMED CHURCH.
As already stated, conferences upon the subject of an
organic union of the Reformed and Associate Presbyteries
in America began in 1777, and continued for several years.
A basis of union which was formulated in 1779, at Pequea,
Pa., was unanimously adopted in the spring of 1780 by
the Associate Presbytery of New York, and by the Re-
formed Presbytery, November 29, 1781, and by a majority
of the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, June 13,
1782.^ The three presbyteries met in convention in Phil-
adelphia, on Wednesday, October 30, 1782, for the con-
summation of the union and the organization of the As-
sociate Reformed Church. They adopted eight articles
for the guidance of the Synod which they designed to
organize.
On Thursday, the 31st of October, 1782, the Synod of
the Associate Reformed Church was formally organized
by the election of John Mason, D.D., of New York, as
moderator. The presbyteries were rearranged, so that
the ministers and congregations in eastern Pennsylvania
constituted The First Presbytery ; those in western Penn-
sylvania, The Second Presbytery ; and those in New York
and New England, The Third Presbytery. The most im-
portant business in which the Synod engaged was the
consideration of the eight articles agreed upon by the
convention which preceded the Synod. These were again
1 See pp. 172, 173.
184
DISPLAY OF PRINCIPLES. 1 85
discussed seriatim, '' and after serious deliberation and
solemn prayer " were unanimously adopted '' as proper
to display the principles upon which we intend to act."
These articles were as follows :
I. It is the resolution of this Synod to persevere in adhering to the system
of truth contained in the Holy Scriptures, exhibited in the Confession of
Faith, Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, and to the fundamental principles of
gospel worship and ecclesiastical government agreed upon by the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from the
Church of Scotland. This declaration, however, does not extend to the
following sections of the Confession of Faith, which define the power of civil
government in relation to religion : chap. xx. sec. 4, chap, xxiii. sec. 3, chap,
xxxi. sec. 2. These sections are reserved for a candid discussion on some
future occasion as God shall be pleased to direct. Nor is it to be construed
as a resignation of our rights to adjust the circumstances of public worship
and ecclesiastical policy to the station in which Divine Providence may place
us. All the members of the Synod acknowledge in the meanwhile that they
are under the most sacred obligations to avoid unnecessary criticism upon
any of these excellent treatises, which would have a native tendency to
weaken their attachment to the truths therein contained. If any of the
members of the Synod shall conceive any scruples at any article or articles
of the Confession of Faith, "Catechisms, Directory of Worship, or Form of
Presbyterian Church Government, or shall think they have sufficient reason
to make objections thereto, they shall have full liberty to communicate their
scruples or objections to their brethren, who shall consider them with im-
partiality, meekness, and patience, and endeavor to remove them by calm,
dispassionate reasoning. No kind of censure shall be inflicted in cases of
this nature, unless those scrupling and objecting brethren shall disturb the
peace of the church by publishing their opinions to the people, or by urging
them in judicatories with irritating and schismatic zeal.
II. The ministers and elders in Synod assembled also declare their hearty
approbation of the earnest contendings for the faith and magnanimous suffer-
ings in its defense by which our pious ancestors were enabled to distinguish
themselves in the last two centuries ; that they have an affectionate remem-
brance of the National Covenant of Scotland, and of the Solemn League and
Covenant of Scotland, England, and Ireland, as well-intended engagements
to support the cause of civil and religious liberty, and hold themselves bound
by divine authority to practice all the moral duties therein contained, accord-
ing to their circumstances ; that public and explicit covenanting with God is
a moral duty under the gospel dispensation, to which they are resolved to
attend as he shall be pleased to direct ; that it is their real intention to carry
with them all the judicial testimonies against defections from the faith once
delivered to the saints which have been emitted in the present age by their
1 86 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
brethren In Scotland, as far as these testimonies serve to display the truth
and comport with the circumstances of our church ; and that they will avail
themselves of every call to bear appointed testimony against the errors and
delusions which prevail in this country.
III. The members of Synod also acknowledge with gratitude that they
are bound to honor the religious denominations in Britain to which they
belonged, on account of their zeal for the purity of the gospel, and of those
laudable efforts to promote it, not only in Britain and Ireland but also in
America, and they profess an unfeigned desire to hold an amicable corre-
spondence with all or any of them, and to concur with them in every just and
eligible measure for promoting true and undefiled religion.
IV. It is also the resolution of this Synod never to introduce, nor suffer
to be introduced, in their church the local controversy about the civil estab-
lishment of the Presbyterian religion, and the religious clause of some
burgess oaths in Scotland, or any unnecessary disputes about the origin of
civil dominion, and the requisites for rendering it legal in circumstances
dissimilar to those in which themselves are placed. They esteem themselves
bound to detach their religious profession from all foreign connections, and
to honor the civil powers of America, conscientiously submitting to them in
all their lawful operations.
V. That the abuse of ecclesiastical censures may be effectually prevented,
the following General Rule of Discipline is unanimously adopted, namely :
That notorious violations of the law of God, and such errors in doctrine as
unhinge the Christian profession, shall be the only scandals for which deposi-
tion and excommunication shall be passed, and that the highest censures of
other offenders shall be a dissolution of the connection between the Synod
and the offender.
VI. The terms of admission to fixed communion with the Synod shall be
soundness in faith as defined in the above-mentioned Confession and Cate-
chisms, submission to the government and discipline of the church, and a
holy conversation.
VII. The members of Synod also acknowledge it to be their duty to treat
pious persons of other denominations with great affection and tenderness.
They are willing, as God affordeth opportunity, to extend communion to all
who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus in conformity to his
will. But as occasional communion in a divided state of the church may
produce great disorders, if it be not conducted with much wisdom and
moderation, they esteem themselves, and the people under their inspection,
inviolably bound in all ordinary cases to submit to every restriction of their
liberty which general edification renders necessary. This article, however,
is not to be construed as a license to encourage vagrant preachers who go
about under pretense of extraordinary zeal and devotion, and are not subject
to the government and discipline of any regular church.
VIII. As the principles of the Synod are detached from the local pecul-
iarities by which the most considerable parts of Presbyterians have been
FORMULATING STANDARDS, 187
hitherto distinguished, it is further agreed to reject all such applications for
admission to fixed communion with the Synod that may at any time be made
by persons belonging to other denomipations of Presbyterians, as evidently
arise from caprice, personal prejudice, or any other schismatical principles,
and that the only admissible application shall be such as shall, upon deliber-
ate examination, be found to arise from a solid conviction of duty, and to
discover Christian meekness toward the party whose communion is relin-
quished, or such as are made by considerable bodies of people who are not
only destitute of a fixed gospel ministry, but cannot reasonably be provided
for by the denomination of Presbyterians to which they belong. It is, how-
ever, thought proper that applications of the last kind shall not be admitted
till the bodies by whom they are admitted shall previously inform the judi-
catories which have the immediate inspection of them of the reasons of their
intended application, and shall use all due means to obtain the concurrence
of that judicatory.
These articles, originally from the pen of Dr. John
Mason, were subsequently revised and slightly amended
and published under the unsuitable title of ** The Consti-
tution of the Associate Reformed Church." They were
popularly known as the *' Little Constitution."
A committee was appointed " to prepare and publish,
as soon as possible, a concise narrative of the rise and
progress of the union between the Associate and Reformed
Presbyteries, and the grounds on which they have erected
themselves into a Synod, together with an illustration of
our constitutional principles as they may judge necessary."
This was after the example of all the dissenting churches
in Scotland ; they prefaced their '* Testimony " with a
*' Narrative," in which they gave an historical defense of
their right to exist. But the ministers of the Synod,
although educated in Scotland, soon felt the influence of
their new surroundings, and realized the change in the
character of their fields of labor. They grew to doubt the
necessity or propriety of such a document in a free country
where there was no Church Establishment to claim a mo-
nopoly of the means of grace. They felt that their patent
was from heaven, and that wherever there were saints to
l88 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. V.
be edified and sinners to be saved, there they had a mis-
sion. The committee never reported, and the church never
cumbered its official literature with an apology for its ex-
istence.
In 1787 Drs. Mason, Annan, and Smith were appointed
a committee to bring in ''An Overture for Illustrating and
Defending the Doctrines of the Westminster Confession of
Faith." Two years afterward a long report was submitted,
in the form of a commentary upon the different chapters
of the Confession. It was discussed at great length at the
meeting in 1 789, and then postponed and further considered
at the meeting in i 790, when, instead of a formal adoption,
it was unanimously resolved that it is *' in substance an
excellent and instructive illustration and application of
these truths unto the present state of the Church of Christ
in America," and warmly recommended it as such to all the
people under their inspection.
The standards of the Associate Reformed Church were
not a birth, but a growth. Those that organized it had
confidence in each other, and united upon the simple basis
of the Westminster Standards, which belonged equally to
both sides, and left time and experience to decide whether
anything should be added, and, if so, what. One of the
objects of her founders, and by no means a small one, was
to establish an American Church holding the theology of
the more conservative churches in Scotland : American in
the twofold sense of being independent of all foreign judi-
catories— a free church in a free state — and also in being
denuded and freed from all peculiarities of alien origin and
suitableness. They did not wish to transplant an exotic
whose special characteristics showed its foreign birth and
relations, and which might not be adapted to the soil and
climate ; but to build a home church, unencumbered with
any historical traditions, which could and would adapt
FORMULATING STANDARDS. 1 89
Itself to the peculiarities and exigencies of its surroundings.
Hence they agreed upon the dogmas of the new organi-
zation, and said nothing about the special modes of their
exhibition. The Reformed and the Associate Churches
had Covenant bonds, and made assent to them a term of
communion; they had also a "Judicial Testimony" of
equal binding obligation with the Confession of Faith.
The Associate Reformed Church started without either of
these. This was not an inadvertence or oversight, but a
deliberate conviction of duty, and for which they were
severely censured by those next of kin in Great Britain
and America.
The new church had to fight for her existence, and the
result of this contest had much to do in giving shape and
character to her forming Standards. She was charged with
*' burying the Covenants," and '' neglecting to insist on their
binding obligation upon posterity." To this the Synod
replied to the Second Presbytery of the Carolinas :
The omission in our Constitution of the National Covenant of Scotland
and the Solemn League and Covenant cannot wound the most tender con-
science when rightly informed. It is not possible, consistently with truth,
to make these Covenants, as they stand, a part of the church's " Testimony "
in America ; and therefore the insertion of them among her terms of commun-
ion, instead of promoting the edification of her members, would only serve
as a snare for their consciences. To be applicable to the circumstances of
this church they must undergo a variety of alterations ; but the moment any
alteration is admitted into an instrument of solemn compact it ceases to
be the same instrument. To viodify the covenants, therefore, is to destroy
them ; they instantly cease to be the same covenants, and the persons who
take them thus modified, instead of renewing them, do, in fact, enter into a
new compact, and by that very act resort to the original principle of cove-
nanting.
The Original Seceders, the successors of McCree and
Paxton, and the most conservative body in Scotland, de-
clared at their union with the Free Church in 1852 :
In fine, looking upon society as possessed of permanent identity in the sight
of God, and on each succeeding age as bound to implement the unexhausted
I90 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
obligations contracted by national oaths, we believe that the covenants of
our ancestors . . . are still binding, and that by them, w^e, as a nation,
are laid under additional obligation to maintain the principles and the cause
of the Reformation.
This was precisely the position taken by the Associate
Reformed fathers seventy years previously — that these
covenants were civil and national, and that the descending
obligations followed not the individual, but the national,
identity ; and although the descendants of covenanted an-
cestors, as citizens of another nation they were not willing
to acknowledge special descending obligations.
When it was urged that these covenants embraced moral
duties as well as civil and national, and that their perform-
ance was made binding upon posterity, the Synod answered
in the ** Little Constitution " that, *' we are bound by the
divine authority to perform all the moral duties contained
in them." That is, whatever is contained in them which
is clearly a moral duty we are bound to perform by the
divine authority which requires it and imparts to it its
character as a moral duty. Any further obligation would
be a surplusage, and that, too, from an inferior source of
authority.
Another difficulty with which the new church had to
contend, in adjusting itself to its new surroundings, was
the precise manner of testimony-bearing. It is very
evident that the founders of the church, through the in-
fluence of their early training, felt that there was or might
be good reason for the adoption of some kind of a '' Judi-
cial Testimony " in addition to the Confession of Faith.
Hence the appointment of the two committees already
mentioned to draft a " Narrative " and to bring in an illus-
trative overture. It is just as evident that there was a
doubt and a hesitancy in this matter, because the first
committee never reported, and the action of the other was
FORMULATING STANDARDS, 191
only commended but never adopted. But as they con-
tinued to discuss the subject, the Synod became more and
more confirmed in its opposition to such an instrument,
and finally and fully decided the question in 1797, by the
adoption of a long explanatory paper, in which they admit
the duty of testifying for the truth, whether it relates to
doctrine, discipline, worship, or manners; but to do so
effectively there must be a wise adaptation to the imme-
diate state of the church and society. And that inasmuch
as there is a constant change going on in the current of
thought and the manners and customs of society, old errors
fading away and new errors springing up, a permanent
" Judicial Testimony " will not meet the exigencies that
may arise from time to time. It would soon be lumbered
with things of no present practical interest, and grow more
and more deficient in reference to new things of pressing
importance. The church's life is progressive, and so should
be its '' Testimony. " It must deal with what is, and not with
what was.
As witnesses of the Most High, Christians are especially bound to avow
and to defend those truths which are more immediately decried, and to
oppose those errors which immediately prevail. This is termed by the Spirit
of God being established in the PRESENT truth. It is the very essence of a
judicious "Testimony," nor is there anyway in which judicatories can so well
maintain it as in serious and Scriptural occasional acts. Of this method of
testifying there are plain and numerous traces in the Holy Scriptures and in
the pious practice of the primitive church.
To escape from these distinctive peculiarities of Scottish
dissent was a very tedious and difficult thing ; and because
the Synod would not include the Scottish Covenants in its
Standards, and declined to issue a " Judicial Testimony "
of the Scottish kind, two of the original founders of the
church withdrew and walked no more with her.
It will be recollected that in the first article of the " Little
Constitution," where adherence to the Westminster Con-
192 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
fession of Faith is professed, the Synod expressly excepted
those sections of chapters xx. and xxiii. and xxxi. which
define the power of civil government in relation to religion,
and reserved them " for candid discussion on some future
occasion as God shall be pleased to direct." These sec-
tions were under discussion for several years, and then it
was finally decided to alter the text of the Confession so
as to free it from all traces of Erastianism, and make the
church independent of the state in all matters of doctrine,
government, and discipline. At the same time and for
the same purpose the word authorizing was substituted
for the word tolerating in the enumeration of the sins
forbidden by the second commandment, as given in the
Larger Catechism.
Sixteen years were thus spent in formulating the Stand-
ards of the church ; and having settled all things to their
mind, the Synod at its meeting at Greencastle, Pa., on the
31st of May, 1799, ''judicially ratified" and ''declared
the aforesaid Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter
Catechisms, together with the Government and Discipline
of the Church, and the Directories of Public and Private
Worship, to be the Constitution and Standards of the
Associate Reformed Church in all matters relating
to Doctrine, Government, Discipline, and Worship." They
declared this to be their " FIXED TESTIMONY," and that,
as emergencies may require, they will " emit occasional
testimonies in particular acts against errors and delusions."
They also fixed the terms of admission to membership in
the church to be :
A profession of faith in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa-
ments as the perfect and only rule of faith and practice, together with an
approbation of the Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms,
Form of Church Government, and Directories for Worship, as therein
received ; a holy life and conversation, and subjection to the Order and Dis-
cipline of the church.
PRESBYTERY OF LONDONDERRY. 1 93
In I ']%6 the congregations in New England were erected
into a new Presbytery, known as the Presbytery of Lon-
donderry. On the 25th of October, 1793, this Presbytery
coalesced with ''The Presbytery of the Eastward," an in-
dependent Presbytery, composed of some Irish congrega-
tions which still lingered, and the united body still re-
tained the title Presbytery of Londonderry. This was
done without the knowledge or authority of the Synod,
which still claimed jurisdiction over its New England
churches. This new Presbytery, which was composed
largely of those who knew nothing of the Associate Re-
formed Church or its Scottish antecedents, was careful to
hold itself aloof from the Synod without any declaration
of independence. Its congregations felt the influence
of their New England surroundings, and were gradually
yielding to Congregationalism in the matters of praise and
discipline and government, and the Synod rebuked the
Presbytery for its laxity, but without accomplishing any
reformation. Finally, in 1796, the Synod appointed two
of its ministers to visit the Presbytery and try to reclaim
them. This committee was providentially hindered from
going, but Dr. John M. Mason, in its name, wrote a very
earnest and able letter, expostulating with the Presbytery
for their irregularities, and sustaining the ground taken by
the Synod. Dr. Morrison, of Londonderry, N. H., answered
for the Presbytery, and stated that the action of the Synod
in formulating the standards of the church was not accept-
able to their people generally, and then avowed their in-
dependence of the Synod, and stated that *' this Presbytery
consider themselves, with divine aid, competent to all the
purposes of judicial authority in the churches or socie-
ties under their care ; are best acquainted with their cus-
toms, temper, and manners, and their situation with respect
to other denominations." The Presbytery continued to
194 ^^^ UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
maintain its independence, and in 1801 the Synod erased
its name from the roll and declared it no longer in its con-
nection. Thus perished Associate Reformed Presyterian-
ism in New England, until resuscitated in 1846 by Dr.
Blaikie in Boston. This Londonderry Presbytery re-
mained independent until 1809, when it united with the
Presbyterian Church, where it still remains.
The Reformed Dutch and Associate Reformed Churches
entertained from the first very kindly feelings for each
other, and as early as 1798, and again in 1820, efforts for
a union were made, but, for reasons which could scarcely
be appreciated now, without success. Nevertheless, the
latter gave to the former, from time to time, some of her
choicest men, in the persons of Drs. Gosman, Matthews,
McMurray, Knox, Strong, etc.
When the church had grown so as to embrace seven
Presbyteries, and was scattered from New York to Georgia,
it was deemed expedient to organize a delegated supreme
judicatory, so as to lessen, as far as possible, the slow and
toilsome travel required of those upon the outskirts of the
church. So in 1802 the whole church was divided into
four Synods, containing two Presbyteries each, and sub-
ordinate to an annual delegated General Synod. These
Synods were New York, and Pennsylvania, and Scioto, and
the Carolinas. The General Synod held its first meeting
at Greencastle, Franklin County, Pa., on the 30th of May,
1804, and was opened with a sermon by Dr. John M.
Mason, after which Alexander Dobbin was chosen moder-
ator, and James Gray stated clerk.
The General Synod did its work smoothly and suc-
cessfully for six or seven years, and then a serious trouble
commenced. It will be recollected that when the Asso-
ciate Reformed Church was organized, the Westminster
Confession of Faith was adopted pure and simple, without
OCCASIONAL COMMUNION. 1 95
explanation or limitation, excepting the power of the civil
magistrate circa saci^a. Consequently the organic law of the
church on the subject of comimmion was contained in the
second section of the twenty-sixth chapter, which reads thus :
Saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and commun-
ion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services
as tend to their mutual edification, as also in relieving each other in outward
things, according to their several abilities and necessities ; which communion,
as God ofTereth opportunity, is to be extended to all those who in every place
call on the name of the Lord Jesus.
The Synod, however, felt the necessity of some limita-
tion, and at its first meeting placed in the ** Little Consti-
tution " the following article:
The members of Synod . . . are willing, as God offereth opportunity, to
extend communion to all who in every place call on the name of the Lord
Jesus, in conformity to his will ; but as occasional communion, in a divided
state of the church, may produce great disorders if it be not conducted with
much wisdom and moderation, they esteem themselves and the people under
their inspection inviolably bound, in all ordinary cases, to submit to every
restriction of their liberty which general edification renders necessary.
To this an explanatory note was appended, in which it
is stated that —
The principle expressed in this article is not a new principle adopted by
the Synod. It is one of the received principles adopted by the Secession,
and it is set in a very strong light in chapter twenty-six of the Confession
of Faith. . . . No objection can therefore be justly stated against it as it
stands in the Confession of Faith. The application of the principle to par-
ticular cases may indeed be attended with some difficulties. W^e are not, how-
ever, accountable for these difficulties, as they arise from the divided state of
the Church of Christ. The article is guarded, and cannot, without the most
evident perversion, be construed as a license to hold unscriptural communion
with other churches. It is the intention of the Synod not to go into connec-
tions with any denomination which are inconsistent with the spirit of what is
usually called the covenanted reformation.
The Overture, which was approved by the Synod in
1790, declares in its illustrations of chapter twenty-six,
among other things —
That a temporary, or what is called occasional, communion with sister
churches may lawfully, in some instances, take place, is what no man of
196 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
understanding, who is not much pinched to support some favorite and false
hypothesis, will deny. The terms of it are not materially different from the
terms of stated communion, only making allowance for a variety in innocent
customs and forms. ... By occasional communion we do not mean the ad-
mitting a person to our communion whom it would be sinful to continue in
it, but a person who, on account of local circumstances, cannot continue in it.
To condense and formulate : the established law of this
new church was that organic unio7t was not necessary for
communion, yet as the Church of Christ was divided, and
errors, serious errors, were taught in some of its branches,
lest these errors might be countenanced and discipline re-
laxed, communion in all ordinary cases should be confined
to its members, and in extraordinary cases extended only
to such as might under favorable circumstances be admitted
to full communion. And this remained the law of the
Associate Reformed Church in all its Synods down to the
union of 1858.
In May, 18 10, Dr. John M. Mason resigned the pastoral
care of the Cedar Street congregation in New York City,
and with a colony commenced the work of building up a
new congregation farther uptown. He had great difficulty
in getting a suitable house in which to hold his services
until their own church building should be erected in Murray
Street. In their strait the trustees of the Presbyterian
Church of which the Rev. Dr. Romeyn was pastor offered
the use of their house at all such times as would not inter-
fere with their own services. This kind and fraternal offer
was gladly accepted, and Dr. Mason held his services im-
mediately after the conclusion of Dr. Romeyn's, in both
the forenoon and afternoon. A large part of Dr. Romeyn's
people were in the habit of remaining to hear Dr. Mason,
who was regarded as the finest pulpit orator of his day,
and in this way the two congregations became very inti-
mate. When the time came for Dr. Mason's first commun-
ion his session resolved, in view of the intimate relations
DR. J, M. MASON. 1 97
of the two congregations, and of the hospitality which
they were receiving, to invite Dr. Romeyn's congrega-
tion to unite with them. This was accepted, and when
Dr. Romeyn's communion occurred the courtesy was re-
ciprocated. This was certainly a new departure in the
history of the Associate Reformed Church, for the practice
of her ministers had been influenced by tradition, and had
always been more conservative and restrictive than her
laws, and it became the subject of very serious considera-
tion by the General Synod at its meeting in May, 1 8 1 1 .
After all the facts had been ascertained, Messrs. Hender-
son and Dick moved, '' That the Synod do declare their
decided disapprobation of the deportment of said breth-
ren (Mason, Matthews, and Clarke) in the premises, and
command them to return to the established order of the
church." This was negatived, and the following resolu-
tion, offered by Messrs. Dickey and Porter, was adopted,
with only three negative votes :
That the judicatories, ministers, and members of the church be and they
hereby are entreated and required to exercise mutual forbearance in the
premises ; and in the use of their discretion to observe mutual tenderness
and brotherly love, studying to avoid vi'hatever may be contrary thereto, and
giving special heed to the preservation of sound and efficient discipline.
Upon this occasion Dr. Mason made a speech of over
three hours, which was regarded as the ablest effort of his
life. He contended that his congregation had not violated
the law of the church, because their circumstances were
very peculiar and extraordinary, and that they had simply
yielded to the necessities of their condition, and that it
was neither their desire nor intention to continue to do so
after the completion of their own building.
This action of Synod was not acceptable to many in
the Synod of Scioto, and remonstrances and petitions were
sent up to every meeting of the General Synod for several
198 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
years, but nothing was accomplished. As a consequence
of this controversy, Dr. Mason in 18 16 published his " Plea
for Sacramental Communion on Catholic Principles," in
which he took higher ground than in his speech before
the Synod, that the '' members who hold acknowledged
communion with the Head, whatever be their subordinate
variance, ought also to hold communion with each other
in those ordinances which mark their communion with the
Head." He never favored indiscriminate or promiscuous
communion; he always insisted upon judging whether a
man really was in communion with the *' Head " before
he would acknowledge him to be a ''member." He de-
fended the '' doctrines of grace " with perhaps more zeal
and ability than any man of his day, and to the last re-
fused to hold *' Christian fellowship with men who corrupt
those precious doctrines which relate to the person, offices,
or work of the Saviour, to the way of the sinner's accept-
ance with God, or to the renewing and sanctifying work
of the Spirit."
The church used exclusively In Its praise the Scottish
version of the Psalms; but the necessity for some im-
provement in their meter and rhythm was soon felt, and
in 1 8 10 a committee of five of its leading ministers was
appointed by the Synod. Their instruction was " to pro-
cure an improved version of Scriptural Psalmody, and to
have the same in readiness for such order as the General
Synod shall see meet to make at the next stated meeting."
Nothing valuable grew out of this, for their poetic talent
was insufficient ; but liberty was given to use the version
of the Reformed Dutch Church — a liberty which was
neither asked nor used by the congregations. The mat-
ter, however, became mixed up with the communion con-
troversy. There were no newspapers In those days to
publish facts, and rumor is always an unsafe guide; so
DECAY OF THE GENERAL SYNOD. 1 99
some of the remote sections of the church became alarmed,
supposing that an attempt was being made to set aside
their dearly loved Psalms, which they cherished as a pre-
cious inheritance.
The Synod began to give decided evidence of premature
decay. Different causes combined to produce this. The
communion and psalmody controversies did something
toward dividing the church and aHenating the confidence
of brethren. Two or three unpleasant cases of discipline
helped to weaken the bonds of affection, particularly a
quarrel between Mr. Rankin and Dr. Bishop, which was
adjudicated by a commission of the General Synod in such
a way as to satisfy neither party and pretty thoroughly
ruin the fortunes of the Presbytery of Kentucky. There
may have been also a little lordly domination on the part
of some; there certainly was considerable jealousy and
suspicion on the part of others ; and such things do a quiet
and deadly work. The General Synod met every year
in Philadelphia, and the delegates from the Carolinas and
from west of the Allegheny Mountains, who had always
to travel on horseback and often over bad roads, could
not as a general thing attend, and the government of the
church became centralized, and so fell into the hands of a
few ; and the possession of power never promotes humility.
In 181 7 the Synod of Scioto asked that the General Synod
should meet, occasionally at least, in a more western and
central place than Philadelphia, or, if this could not be
done, that the church should be divided into two or more
separate and independent Synods. Both of these requests
were refused. The result of all these things combined
was that the Synod of Scioto, which embraced all the ter-
ritory west of the Allegheny Mountains, at its meeting
at Rush Creek, Fairfield County, O., in 1820, constituted
itself into an independent judicatory, under the title of
200 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. v.
the Associate Reformed Synod of the West. In 1 82 1 the
Synod of the CaroHnas petitioned the General Synod for a
separate and independent organization. This was granted,
and on the ist of April, 1822, it so constituted itself as
the Associate Reformed Synod of the South, and has so re-
mained until the present time. This left only the Synods
of New York and Pennsylvania in connection with the
General Synod.
When the General Synod, thus reduced, met in Phila-
delphia in May, 1821, an overture was received from the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church proposing
an organic union of the two churches. Committees were
appointed by both bodies to conduct the negotiations, and
the following plan was agreed upon as a basis of union,
viz.: I. That the different Presbyteries of the Associate
Reformed Church should either retain their separate or-
ganization or be amalgamated with those of the General
Assembly at their own choice; 2. That the theological
seminary of the Associate Reformed Church should be
consolidated with the General Assembly's one at Prince-
ton ; 3. That the Associate Reformed Library and Funds
should be transferred and belong to the seminary at
Princeton. There were no doctrinal terms in the basis,
inasmuch as both parties adhered to the same Confession
of Faith and Catechisms. This plan was overtured to the
Presbyteries of the General Synod.
The General Synod met on the 15th of May, 1822, in
Philadelphia, when only three fourths of the delegates
commissioned appeared. The overture in reference to
union with the Presbyterian Church was taken up, and
three fifths of the Presbyteries reported against it. Not-
withstanding this presbyterial rejection, the subject was
discussed at length for parts of four days, and then, on
the 2 1 St of May, it was resolved, ''That this Synod ap-
UNION WITH THE PRESBYTERIANS, 201
prove and hereby do ratify the plan of union between the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and the
Associate Reformed Church, proposed by commissioners
from said churches." This was carried by a majority of
two, while one fourth of the members present refused to
vote. Mr. Smith raised the objection that the resolution
was not passed, because less than a majority of members
present had not voted for it. The moderator, Dr. Laurie,
of Washington City, decided that all silent votes were to
be reckoned with the majority, and that the resolution
was carried. Those who voted in the minority protested
against this action, because it was against the voice of the
church, as a majority of its presbyteries and congregations
and ministers were opposed to the union. And fourteen
years afterward the civil courts pronounced the act ille-
gal, and ordered the restoration of the property transferred
under it.
A committee was appointed to transfer the library and
the seminary funds from New York to Princeton, and to re-
port the result to the General Assembly. Mr. J. Arbuckle,
the stated clerk of Synod, and also the pastor-elect of the
Spruce Street Church in Philadelphia, was one of this com-
mittee, and he asked and obtained leave of absence that
he might go immediately to New York and attend to
these removals before any legal obstacles could be placed
in the way. The General Assembly was at once advised
of all this action, and a union thanksgiving was held the
next day in the Assembly's house, when a Psalm and
a hymn were sung and a prayer offered by one of each
party. The Union part of the General Synod met the
next morning in synodic capacity, and adopted the draft
of a pastoral letter to the churches in explanation and de-
fense of their course, and directed Mr. Arbuckle to deposit
all the minutes and documents of the General Synod with
202 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
the session of the Spruce Street congregation, " subject to
the future disposal of the General Assembly of the Pres-
byterian Church." They then sang, not as usual, the one
hundred and thirty-third Psalm, but the penitential one
hundred and thirtieth, and ** finally adjourned." Many
years afterward the large minute-book was very provi-
dentially found, by a friend of the church, in a grocery
store in the city; the proprietor had bought it in a junk
shop, as waste paper. It is now in the vault of the Pub-
lication House of the United Presbyterian Church in Pitts-
burg, Pa. On the day of thanksgiving the delegates of
the General Synod were cordially invited to take their
seats forthwith in the Assembly as constituent members.
Rev. Messrs. McLeod and Duncan and Elders Nourse and
Patterson did so, but all the others excused themselves
and immediately returned home.
Thus perished the General Synod, after a somewhat
troubled existence of only eighteen years, and mainly
because of the domineering spirit of a few leading men.
Not many ministers or congregations left the old church,
but their loss was seriously felt, for it swept away every-
thing Associate Reformed in the cities of New York, Phila-
delphia, Baltimore, and Washington. It cut the church
into three pieces. North, West, and South, and our history
follows the fortunes of the first two of these.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ASSOCIATE REFORMED SYNOD OF NEW YORK.
This Synod as a subordinate Synod met in the au-
tumn of 1812, in Broadalbin, Fulton County, N. Y., and
adjourned to meet in May, 18 14, in the city of New York.
This meeting did not take place, and until February, 1822,
there was no subsequent meeting. The one appointed for
1 8 14 was mainly prevented by the unsettled state of the
country produced by the war then existing between the
United States and Great Britain. Subsequent meetings
were omitted from neglect or a want of interest. The
unhappy and personal controversies in the General Synod
had so distracted and disheartened many of the ministers
that they felt very much like retiring and letting every-
thing outside of their personal charges go by default.
The spirit of the body had been measurably destroyed,
but the action of the General Synod in 1821, in reference
to a union with the Presbyterian Church, roused these
Northern ministers from their lethargy, and they resolved
to labor still for the welfare of their old mother church.
Dr. Robert Proudfit, moderator of the Synod of 18 12,
called a special meeting of the Synod, to assemble Feb-
ruary 13, 1822, at Galway, Saratoga County, N, Y. This
meeting was well attended by both ministers and elders,
and the two following resolutions were adopted, with but
one dissenting voice :
203
204 '^HE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Synod, the union proposed with the
General Assembly is inexpedient, and calculated to disturb the peace of our
churches.
2. Resolved, That this Synod will maintain its existence in its present
form, whatever be the decision of the General Synod upon the contemplated
union.
It was then agreed to hold the next regular meeting at
Newburg, on the 13th of the following September. Had
the five delegates from this Synod that failed to appear
in the meeting of the General Synod in 1822 attended,
the resolution for union would not have passed, for they
were all opposed to it.
The Synod met in Newburg, according to appointment,
and was opened with a sermon by the Rev. James Scrim-
geour, the senior minister, and was by him constituted
with prayer. This was its first meeting as an independent
and supreme judicatory, and the Court of Chancery of
New Jersey subsequently decided that it was the legiti-
mate successor of the General Synod, or at least next of
kin, and thus its legal heir.
The yearnings of a common parentage and the memories
of old friendships and past associations remained strong in
the disrupted body, so in 1823 propositions came from the
West and the South asking for some closer connection of
the several fragments of the Associate Reformed Church.
Negotiations were opened, and carried on for four years,
and then in September of 1827 delegates from the three
synods met in Pittsburg and drafted a plan for the re-
organization of a General Synod. The synods did not
approve of the plan. The prevailing objections were the
great extent of territory covered, and the toil and expense
of the travel involved. They concluded, however, that
as they were one in parentage and faith and practice and
feeling, they would remain one in reality, without any
organic union, and so resolved to recognize each other as
MORGAN ABDUCTION.
205
sister churches, and to reciprocate Christian and ministerial
fellowship, and to accredit testimonials of private members,
probationers, and ministers precisely in the same manner
as if they were connected in one ecclesiastical organization.
And the result was harmony, peace, kind feeHng, and
pleasant intercourse. There may be danger in pressing
the matter and fact of organization too far, for crossing and
conflicting interests in the machinery may sometimes inter-
fere with the true Christian spirit which should always
dominate. Union with the head, Christ, will secure one-
ness of the members.
The Synod felt its responsibility for the wide and needy
field which Providence had committed to its care, and re-
solved to do the best it could. In 1824 it organized itself
into a Domestic Missionary Society, and had an annual
sermon on the subject, and subordinate societies were in-
stituted in all the congregations which held monthly meet-
ings for prayer and information. The machinery was
rather clumsy, and yet it was the means of developing
considerable missionary spirit and of securing Hberal con-
tributions.
During the month of September, 1826, William Morgan,
of Batavia, N. Y., for revelations made by him, was ab-
ducted by some of his brother masons, and taken by relays
of horses through Caledonia and Canandaigua, and back
through Rochester and Lockport to the mouth of the
Niagara River, and there put into a boat at night, and
taken out on Lake Ontario and never seen again. This
produced a very great outburst of feeling throughout the
whole country, and especially in western New York. As
it took place in the territory of the Synod of New York,
and in the very heart of the Presbytery of Caledonia, it
was very natural that the subject of freemasonry should
come up before the Synod as a moral question. And so
206 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
it did in 1828, when, after protracted and mature deliber-
ation, it was
Resolved, That the multiplication and the nature of the oaths administered
in the masonic lodges are unwarranted in the Word of God and demoralizing
in their tendency ; and that our church-members be and hereby are enjoined
not to connect themselves with the society ; and any who may have been in-
itiated are affectionately recommended to withdraw from any further connec-
tion with this institution.
Excitement continued and even increased in both church
and State, so that in 1830 it was further enacted —
That this Synod will and hereby do express their decided disapprobation
of the principles and usages of freemasonry, as far as known to them, and
warn their people solemnly and affectionately against all connection with the
institution ; that it be and hereby is enjoined upon church sessions, under
the inspection of this Synod, to adopt the most prudent and effective measures
to remove the contamination from our churches.
A few members of the church in Delaware County asked
the privilege of retaining a silent membership in masonry
by simply paying their dues without meeting in the lodge.
But they were answered, *' That the act of Synod, adopted
at its last meeting, requires them to withdraw entirely from
all connection with and subjection to the society of free-
masons." This position of the Synod was never afterward
questioned or modified, or in any way disturbed.
In the early part of the nineteenth century the use of
ardent spirits by ministers as well as laymen was almost
universal. Good men had not yet learned that there might
be a criminal temptation in the mere use of intoxicat-
ing drinks as a beverage. They were free to condemn
drunkenness as a sin, but they supposed that all its sinful-
ness arose from the abuse of that which, in moderation,
was lawful. In 1828 the Synod pronounced intemper-
ance " a great and prevailmg evil in our country," and
directed its ministers to preach against this vice, and that
they and their elders should show an example of the strict-
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 20/
est temperance, abstaining in this matter even from the
appearance of evil. The custom of the country hitherto
had been to have the bottle always upon the dinner-table
upon all special occasions, whether it was at a Synod or a
Presbytery, at a marriage or a funeral ; but a public opinion
began now to grow rapidly, which challenged the propriety
and correctness of such a custom, and under its quickening
influence the Synod in 1829 took the following action:
Resolved, That this Synod disapprove of the use of spirituous liquors as a
beverage, and that they will themselves entirely abstain from it in all their
meetings, and recommend to Presbyteries and sessions to do the same.
This was done on the avowed principle of sustaining the
expression of opinion by corresponding practice. Temper-
ance societies began to spring up, in which the members
pledged themselves at first to a modified and restricted
use of liquors, and in many cases imposing a fine for any
violation of the pledge. Finally the pledge required total
abstinence. In 1833 the Synod passed an act approving
of the establishment of temperance societies on "5^^?//-
«^r^/ principles," and cordially recommended and exhorted
their members to connect themselves with these societies.
The temperance movement at this first outburst became
very wild and developed no little fanaticism, so the Synod
limited its approval to those only that were organized in
accordance with Scriptural principles. The Synod had
occasion to speak upon this subject at different subsequent
times, and always condemned the use of spirituous liquors
as a beverage.
With our present wealth of religious periodicals it is
hard to conceive how the church, within the memory of
some still living, was able to do its work without these
pastoral assistants. Their need was long felt before the
remedy was provided. The Synod soon realized the
208 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
absolute necessity of having some periodical under its
control, or so connected with it that the homes of the
families of the church could be easily reached through its
pages. So in 1831 it directed the establishment of a
monthly periodical, to be called the *' Christian Magazine,"
to be published at Geneva, N. Y., and to be edited by
Rev. John F. McLaren. This magazine was very credit-
ably edited, and for eleven years did a good work for the
church, and then for sundry causes it ceased to exist. The
necessity for such an organ was now more painfully felt
than before its advantages had been experienced, so in
1844 the establishment of a similar magazine, ''The
Christian Instructor," was ordered. For two years it was
published in Newburg, N. Y., and edited by the Rev. Dr.
John Forsyth, and then transferred to Philadelphia, to be
conducted by Dr. J. B. Dales as a private enterprise. It
was subsequently converted into a large weekly paper,
and is still doing good service in the church.
The Synod in its independent career soon felt hampered
and oppressed from a lack of ministers, and realized the
imperative necessity of establishing a theological seminary
to supply the demand. Dr. Alexander Proudfit and Rev.
Robert Forrest were appointed to apply to the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church for the return of the
library and funds of the old seminary, which had been
transferred in 1822 to Princeton. This they did, but met
with no encouragement, and the Synod got along as best
it could until 1829, when it was unanimously resolved,
" That the present time is the proper time for making a
beginning in this good work." A course of study was
adopted ; Dr. Joseph McCarrell was chosen principal pro-
fessor; Newburg, N. Y., was selected as the location; and
the seminary was opened in the autumn with several
students.
RETURN OF LIBRARY. 209
In 1830 it was resolved to make another effort for the
restoration of the alienated library and funds. A memo-
rial was drafted and placed in the hands of Dr. McCarrell
and John Forsyth, Esq., to be presented to the next Gen-
eral Assembly. It was also determined that this should
be the last appHcation, and if denied, a suit in the civil
court should be instituted. In May, 1831, the commis-
sioners appeared before the Assembly, and their memorial
was referred to a special committee, which brought in an
adverse report/ The Assembly did not adopt this, but
referred it and the memorial to the trustees of the Theo-
logical Seminary at Princeton, with power to act according
to their judgment. The trustees decHned to decide upon
the claim, and referred it back to the next Assembly, with
their advice to reject it. When the subject came up in
the Assembly of 1832 Dr. McCarrell was again present,
and asked the privilege of being heard. This was refused.
The reading of a written argument prepared by him was
then offered, and also declined. This Assembly was com-
posed almost entirely of different members from that of
the previous year, and they had not heard a single word
in defense of the claim ; yet they refused to hear anything
upon the subject, except the report of a select committee
upon the opinion or paper of the trustees of the seminary.
The conclusion was soon attained, and it was a positive
rejection. This shut the door against all further friendly
negotiation, and a suit was commenced at once in the
Court of Chancery in the State of New Jersey. The case
lingered, like all such cases, until July, 1837, when the
chancellor decided in the Synod's favor on every point
presented in the claim. The library and funds were at
once siirrendered and transferred to Newburg.
The Synod having no foreign missionary enterprise of
its own, some of its ministers and congregations identi-
2IO THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
fied themselves with the American Board, and it always
dispensed the Lord's Supper during its annual meeting.
Participation in these communion services became a prac-
tical question with those ministers who attended its meet-
ings, one of whom was a corporate member of the Board.
In 1838 the Synod instructed against any participation on
these occasions — not because it was opposed to occasional
communion under proper circumstances, but because the
Board made all the arrangements for these communion
services, thereby implying that it had the right to admin-
ister the sealing ordinances of the church, and also because
of the miscellaneous character of the faith and practice of
the crowd which usually partook of the Supper.
The antislavery feeling, which had been gradually and
steadily growing in our country during the first part of
this century, soon showed itself in the proceedings of the
Synod. Plain people cannot comprehend that system of
ethics which divides a man's identity and allows him to do
as a citizen that which it forbids him to do as a Christian.
Memorials upon the subject of slavery began to come up
to the Synod as early as 1837, and continued to come for
the next ten or twelve years. The Synod did not, how-
ever, warm up to the subject very readily, and uniformly
answered, that, having no connection with slavery or
slave territory, or bodies that tolerated slaveholding mem-
bers, there was no call for a judicial or ecclesiastical utter-
ance. This refusal to speak out did not satisfy the con-
sciences of many of the members of the church, who felt
that the cries of wronged and wounded humanity should
be heeded, and receive at least the recognition and sym-
pathy of all God's people. Besides, slavery, in its relations
and its spirit of extension, had become a practical ques-
tion of every-day life, far beyond its territorial boundaries.
A great political party, known as the '' Free- Soil," was
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 211
springing into existence, specially in opposition to it ; and
on the other side, Congress had denied the right of petition
on this subject, and had passed a law making it the duty
of Northern men to help to return the fugitive slave to
his Southern master, and had also permitted slavery to be
carried into territory hitherto free.
The Presbytery of Philadelphia, moved by these aggres-
sions, memorialized the Synod in 185 i to issue a testimony
against slavery as an '' enormous system of immorality."
This memorial was referred to a special committee, and
in due time a majority report, by Dr. Robert Proudfit, and
a minority report, by Rev. A. Bowers, were brought in.
The former recommended that no testimony be issued,
and the principal reasons for this refusal were two, and
may be epitomized thus: First, that special testimonies
and warnings, according to the custom and policy of our
church, were issued only against dangerous errors and
gross immoralities prevailing at the time, and within the
bounds of our church ; and as there was no slavery within
the bounds of our Synod, a testimony was not called for.
Second, that slavery is an institution wholly under the
control of civil authority ; and however iniquitous in its
origin, the church can have no control over its continu-
ance, and has neither the right nor the power to abolish it,
the kingdom of Christ being not of this world. The report
ended with a strong protest against any insinuation that
may be made that this Synod is a proslavery Synod, from
either its former or its present action on this subject. This
report was adopted by a majority of five, and it is worthy
of note that a majority of the affirmative vote was given
by ruling elders, while three fourths of the negative were
by ministers. Politics had unquestionably much to do in
the matter, for both Whigs and Democrats looked upon
the Free-Soilers with much disfavor.
212 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
The question at issue, however, was not the abstract
right or wrong of slavery, but the right and the expediency
of issuing testimonies in reference to civil institutions. It
is but just to say that every one of these men that voted
for the report was conscientiously and avowedly opposed
to slavery. The acknowledged leader, who spoke for two
hours against synodic action, was one of the first men who
joined in the organization of the Republican party for the
avowed purpose of antagonizing slavery. He did so, ac-
cording to his theory, as a citizen in the performance of a
civil duty, and not as a minister in the discharge of an
ecclesiastical duty. He and those ministers that joined
with him were not only conservative by natural tempera-
ment, but they had learned in their youth that if the state
must not handle things purely ecclesiastical, neither must
the church deal with civil institutions. They held that
Christians are in duty bound to leaven the world with
their spirit and thought, and that they must do this not
in the discharge of their ecclesiastical functions, which are
for those that are within, but by carrying their educated
consciences and pure morality into the discharge of their
duties as citizens ; that their religion should dominate their
politics, instead of allowing their politics to control their
religion. They would not vote for immoral men, and be-
lieved that if only friends of Christ were put into office,
the world would soon be revolutionized in the matter of
its morality.
While the union movement between the Associate and
the Associate Reformed Churches was slowly progressing,
a proposition was made to unite the two Associate Re-
formed Synods, that of New York and the General Synod
of the West, into one organization. This was easily and
quickly done in 1855, upon the simple basis that, possess-
ing the same standards, the appellate powers of the new
UNION WITH THE WEST. 213
General Synod should be confined exclusively to questions
of doctrine; and that all institutions and property belong-
ing to each Synod shall so remain without any interference
in any manner by the General Synod, or any other partic-
ular Synod. The career of the Synod as an independent
body now ceased, and it has since continued as a particular
Synod, subordinate to the General Assembly of the United
Presbyterian Church.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ASSOCIATE REFORMED SYNOD OF THE WEST.
We have seen in a previous chapter that the course of
the first General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church,
for various reasons, was not satisfactory to the subordinate
Synod of Scioto, and that the latter in 1818 proposed to
the former that it would hold its meetings in a more central
place than Philadelphia, that there might be a fuller west-
ern representation ; or, failing in this, to divide the church
into two or more independent Synods. The General Synod
refused to do either, and then appointed a commission,
clothed with judicial power, to go to Lexington and settle
the troubles which then afflicted the Presbytery of Ken-
tucky. When men have once tasted power, they are slow
to relinquish it. The Synod of Scioto, at its meeting in
the autumn of 1818, gave an expression of its feelings by
enjoining its Presbyteries to report to the next meeting
their judgment whether the Synod at that meeting should
constitute itself into an independent Synod, or continue to
bear its grievances. Guided by the answers of its Presby-
teries, the Synod in October, 1819,
Resolved, That the next meeting of this Synod be held at , etc., and
that it will then constitute itself into an independent Synod, declaring, as they
hereby declare, their strict adherence to the Confession of Faith, Larger
and Shorter Catechisms, Form of Church Government, and Directories of
Worship, as received at Greencastle on the 31st of May, 1799, and uniformly
acted on as then understood till the year 181 1, on which ground they will re-
ciprocate ministerial and Christian communion with the other branches of the
Associate Reformed Church.
214
ORGANIZA TION AND FIELD. 2 1 5
The Synod held its next meeting at Rush Creek, Fair-
field County, O., on the 27th of April, 1820, when it re-
affirmed the action of the previous meeting by but two
dissenting votes, and then re-constituted itself as an inde-
pendent Synod, under the name of The Associate Reformed
Synod of the West. It contained the three Presbyteries of
Monongahela, Kentucky, and Ohio, whose congregations
were scattered all along from the Allegheny Mountains to
the Mississippi River. The Presbytery of Kentucky was,
however, very feeble. From 1800 to 18 10 the counties
lying around Lexington constituted not only the garden
spot of the State, but also of the Associate Reformed
Church. This region gave more promise of a rich future
to the church than almost any other section of the whole
country. The congregations were comparatively numer-
ous; the Academy of Kentucky was instituted and en-
dowed by the State with four thousand five hundred acres
of land ; a majority of the professors in Transylvania Uni-
versity were ministers of the Associate Reformed Church ;
even subscriptions were offered for the founding of a west-
ern theological seminary at Lexington, which was expected
to rival the one in New York under Dr. Mason ; and such
pulpit orators as Rankin, Bishop, and McCord were very
scarce anywhere. But, unhappily, brotherly love ceased
to flourish among these brilliant ministers, and jealousies
and dissensions entered the Presbytery. A blight soon
passed over the fair prospects, and when the Synod of the
West was organized the Academy of Kentucky was closed
and its lands all lost, the University of Transylvania was
without an Associate Reformed professor, the congrega-
tions shrunk in many instances to skeletons, and William
H. Rainey was the only settled pastor. All this from pure
mismanagement and criminal captiousness, for the question
of slavery had not yet been started to vex the churches,
2l6 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
and when it was, a few years later, all of Kentucky be-
came lost to the Synod.
After assuming the responsibilities of an independent
body, the members of the Synod soon realized that the
field for cultivation was very large and that the laborers
were very few. The number of congregations was twice
that of the ministers, and needy and uncared-for commu-
nities were painfully plenty. Measures were soon taken to
provide for the training of young ministers, and in May,
1825, it was resolved to establish a theological seminary
in Pittsburg, with Dr. Joseph Kerr as its first professor.
This institution was opened in December, and still exists,
and has educated nearly one thousand young men for the
Christian ministry. A second theological seminary was
instituted in 1839, at Oxford, O., over which Dr. Joseph
Claybaugh was first called to preside.
The Synod also urged upon the Presbyteries the neces-
sity of establishing classical schools and academies within
their bounds, that they might become feeders to the semi-
nary by supplying the facilities for the preparatory edu-
cation. Quite a number of such schools were organized
and conducted with success, and proved to be a great
blessing both to the church and also to the communities in
which they were located, for the facilities for education
were yet very limited in many sections of our country.
As an additional inducement and help, a Young Men' s Fnnd
was established in 1826, to aid indigent and pious young
men in preparing for the ministry. From it young men
could borrow to a certain amount and return the princi-
pal within a certain number of years, without the payment
of any interest. It was the best the church could then
afford, and it answered its purpose well, for it helped and
is still helping many students into the ministry, without
doing anything toward pauperizing them in fact or in
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 21/
spirit. The church has since added a more gratuitous
scheme of assistance, but it is an open question whether
the ministry or the church has been really benefited
thereby, for we cherish most dearly and use most carefully
that which costs us most. Young men enter other pro-
fessions and lines of business without the agency of organ-
ized assistance, and they are all the better for it, because
the development of character and the habits of industry
and economy acquired in so doing become the very sources
of their future success. Ministers need as much develop-
ment and stamina of character as any other class of men,
and whatever helps to produce these is a positive gain, and
to be nursed too tenderly may in the end be a loss.
One of the Presbyteries had some difficulty in determin-
ing whether the organization of a congregation could be
completed without deaconSy and referred the question in
1824 to the Synod. The matter was kept under con-
sideration for a number of years, and then indefinitely
postponed. The prevailing opinion in Synod seemed to
be, that, as every lower office is included in those above,
and as the apostles did not evolve the office of deacon till
the ministrations to the poor became so burdensome as to
require a distinct class of men to conduct them, so every
congregation should be left to determine for itself when it
may become necessary to evolve the office of deacon out
of the office of ruling elder, and that the condition of one
congregation should not be a law unto another.
There was a time when much of the earnest, active
antislavery sentiment in the country existed in the slave-
holding States. Those who gave the original impulse to
the antislavery sentiment in this Synod were principally
those who had emigrated from the South. At a meeting
of the Synod at Chillicothe, O., in May, 1826, a memorial
upon the subject of slavery came up from Hop well, Preble
2l8 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
County, O., from a congregation which had come as a
colony from South Carolina. This started a series of dis-
cussions, which passed from Synod to Synod until 1830,
when the following was adopted :
1. That the religion of Jesus Christ requires that involuntary slavery should
be removed from the church as soon as an opportunity in the providence of
God is offered to slave-owners for the liberation of their slaves.
2. That when there are no regulations of the State to prohibit it, when
provision can be made for the support of the freedmen, when they can be
placed in circumstances to support the rank, enjoy the rights, and discharge
the duties of freedmen, it shall be considered that such an opportunity is
afforded in the providence of God.
3. That the Synod will, as it hereby does, recommend it to all its members
to aid in placing the slaves which are within the jurisdiction of this Synod in
the possession of their rights as freedmen ; and that it be recommended to
them especially to take up annual collections to aid the funds of the American
society for colonizing the free people of color in the United States.
4. That the practice of buying or selling slaves for gain by any member of
this church be disapproved, and that slave-owners under the jurisdiction of
the Synod be, as they hereby are, forbidden all aggravations of the evils of
slavery by violating the ties of nature, the separation of husband and wife,
parents and children, or by cruel or unkind treatment ; and that they shall
not only treat them well, but also instruct them in useful knowledge and the
principles of the Christian religion, and in all respects treat them as enjoined
upon masters toward their servants by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Synod in 1838 explained the second resolution
by declaring, ** That an opportunity in the providence of
God shall be considered as afforded when the master can
emancipate his slave and place him in circumstances where
he shall not be liable to be immediately sold into bondage."
And in 1839 the following preamble and resolution were
passed in reference to the third resolution :
As there are two conflicting societies operating in the community — the Col-
onization and the Antislavery Societies — and as this Synod has recommended
the former to the patronage of the churches under its care, and as it is desir-
able the Synod should keep clear of this excitement, and as the church should
not be involved by the operation of bodies over which it has no control ;
therefore. Resolved, That this Synod withdraws the recommendation formerly
given to the Colonization Society.
A CTION ANENT SLA VER K 219
Public opinion in later days regarded the resolutions of
1830 as a very mild condemnation of slavery, while they
were in reality a very advanced attainment upon this sub-
ject at the time when they were passed ; and their wisdom
was vindicated by their fruits, for they served their pur-
pose so well that the growing antislavery sentiment of the
church never sought to disturb them, giving a good illus-
tration of the fact that a mild law faithfully executed is
always more efficacious for good than a severer law imper-
fectly enforced. The Synod was in earnest, and did de-
sign to execute all that it had enacted, for in 1832 it issued
a Letter of Warning, and spoke of these resolutions thus :
Now, brethren, it is expected that the foregoing resolutions will not be as
a dead letter, but be respected and reduced to practice. It is expected that
sessions and presbyteries will see them enforced. It is expected that slave-
owners in the church will make conscience of seeking and improving oppor-
tunities, and the very first which offer, of liberating their slaves. It is
expected that in the meantime they will give satisfactory evidence to their re-
spective sessions that they do consider slavery a moral evil, and that they do
truly desire to get rid of it as soon as they can, and that it is their intention
to embrace the first opportunity which God in his providence shall give them
for so doing. And it is expected of sessions that they will require this of
slave-owning church-members or applicants.
The abduction of Morgan in 1826 produced a very
sudden and very violent anti-masonic excitement through-
out the whole country, and it made its appearance in Synod
in 1829, through the instrumentality of the Presbytery of
Monongahela, and perhaps fully as much in the interest
of a political party, then forming, as in vindication and
furtherance of the truth. The Synod did not enter into
any extended discussion of the abstract question of the
right or wrong of masonry, but instituted an inquiry to
see how far the church was contaminated with it. Find-
ing that the churches of the Synod were virtually free
from it, the following action was taken :
220 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
Whereas a reference from the Presbytery of Monongahela, relative to
masonry, has been brought before this Synod ; and Whereas it is believed
that the practice of freemasonry is contrary to the standards of this church ;
and Whereas, on inquiry being made, it has been ascertained that the several
ministers of this Synod are in the practice of detaining from sealing ordi-
nances those who take unlavi^ful oaths : therefore, Resolved^ That the Synod
take no further notice of the subject.
The matter of secret societies, in a more general form,
came before the General Synod in 1846, when the follow-
ing action was taken :
1. Whereas the Society of Odd Fellows has been and still is making
special efforts to revive and secure popular favor to the principle of secret as-
sociations, and especially to give the appearance of morality and religion by
the names of ministers of the gospel ; and Whereas we regard the principle
itself as inconsistent with the character of true Christianity and highly danger-
ous to our civil institutions : therefore, Resolved, That this Synod do hereby
express its disapprobation of said society, and warn our people that persist-
ence in a connection with it must subject such as do so to the discipline of
the church.
2. Whereas the Order of the Sons of Temperance, though having a more
simple object and free from oaths, is nevertheless organized on the principle
of secret associations, and thereby sanctioning it ; therefore, Resolved, That,
in the judgment of this Synod, it is the duty of professing Christians to stand
aloof from its entanglements, and not to give it their sanction or encourage-
ment.
The custom of the country in the early part of the nine-
teenth century not only permitted the use of spirituous
liquors as a beverage, but almost exacted it as a token of
hospitality. Friendship would not withhold the cup, and
would scarcely even allow its rejection. Even ministers
in the performance of their pastoral duties were expected
to drink, and were often urged to do so, and this was the
secret of the fall of not a few of them. Against all this
the conscience of good and thoughtful men finally revolted,
and a great temperance movement was inaugurated. The
Synod gave its first deliverance upon this subject in 1834,
in the passage of the following resolutions :
TEMPERANCE— TESTIMONIES. 2 2 I
1. That the practice of using ardent spirits as a drink, or mode of express-
ing our hospitality to a friend, is calculated to do much injury to society, and,
in view of the benevolent effort now in progress for the suppression of intem-
perance, is calculated to expose the Christian character to reproach ; and,
therefore, that it be recommended to all the members of the churches under
our care to abstain from it.
2. That while it is not maintained that the manufacture and vending of
ardent spirits are, in themselves, immoral, yet, in consideration of the very
general abuse of the article, it is recommended to all under our care to abstain
from both.
3. That while it is the province of the ordinances of the gospel alone, under
the divine blessing, to produce and promote temperance as a Christian grace,
and while it is left to the discretion of individuals to promote the cause of
temperance as a social virtue in that mode which to them may appear most
efficacious, yet a temperance society, established upon proper principles, is
well calculated to promote this latter kind of temperance, and is not liable to
any serious objections.
These same views were reaffirmed in 1841, in language
more positive and emphatic.
The scarcity of men and money compelled the Synod
to cultivate its home missionary field just as it could and
without any well-defined system. Every pastor gave a
portion of his time to vacancies and destitute places in his
own neighborhood or Presbytery, and occasionally one or
more were taken from their charges and sent for months
on a tour of missionary exploration. But an increase of
resources called for some system which would secure
greater efficiency. After much consideration and some
experimenting it was finally agreed to leave the disposal
of all licentiates and unsettled ministers to a Committee of
Missions, to be composed of one member from each Pres-
bytery, which was to meet annually before or during the
meeting of the Synod, and make a distribution of ministers
to the different Presbyteries according to their need, and
to fix the amounts of money to be appropriated to the
places needing help. The whole to be subject to the ap-
proval of the Synod.
222 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
In the constitution of the Associate Reformed Church
provision was made for the emitting of occasional testi-
monies from time to time to protect the doctrinal purity
and practical piety of the church from prevailing errors
and immoralities. In accordance with this the Synod in
1825 prepared and issued an exhaustive and elaborate
testimony against " Hopkinsian, Socinian, and semi-Socin-
ian errors as prevalent in the present day." Other testi-
monies of this kind were issued in 1832 : one in reference
to the Sabbath; another upon revivals as conducted with
the anxious-bench machinery ; another upon evil speaking ;
and another upon slavery; and still another in 1853, "on
the neglected duty of honoring the Lord with our sub-
stance." This last would be seasonable at any time, and
concludes thus :
The following opinions are of bad practical tendency, and as such we con-
demn them, and testify against them :
1. That the common education of children and domestics may be neglected
without sin, and that we are under no obligation to assist in the education of
other children than our own.
2. That we are not obliged to assist the poor, unless they are church-
members and worthy persons.
3. That we are not bound to assist with our substance in relieving the op-
pressed, unless we personally assisted in inflicting the oppression.
4. That it is either sinful or dangerous to assist societies which are moral
and benevolent in their character and operations.
5. That Christians may discharge all their duties and yet neglect to sup-
port the gospel as God has prospered them.
6. That men have no rule but their own fancy and pleasure to guide them
in supporting the gospel and aiding benevolent societies.
The Synod felt that the foreign missionary cause had
claims upon it, and after much deliberation concluded in
1837 to engage in the work to the extent of its ability,
and planned to send Rev. W. Blain to India, to join in
the same mission with Mr. McEwen, who had been sent
there by the Synod of New York. But before all neces-
FOREIGN MISSIONS— CHURCH VOTES. 223
sary arrangements could be made Mr. McEwen's health
failed and he was compelled to return, and the enterprise
was abandoned. The Synod, however, felt that there was
a neglected duty in the matter. Denominational mission-
ary boards had not yet been established, and nearly all the
missionary work done outside of the American Board was
done through the agency of local voluntary societies. The
Mercer County (Pa.) Society was of this kind, and was
composed of members of the Presbyterian, the Associate,
the Associate Reformed, and the Covenanter Churches.
In 1 84 1 the General Synod requested its ministers, as
speedily as possible, to take up collections to be appro-
priated to the support of Rev. J. R. Campbell, who had
been sent to India, in 1835, by this society. This was felt
to be only temporary, and did not give full satisfaction,
so in 1842 the Synod '' Re solved, ThsX we will endeavor, in
reliance on the great Head of the church, to send out at
least one missionary to Palestine, by the 1st of October,
1844." In the winter of 1844-45 Rev. J. Barnett and his
brother-in-law, J. G. Paulding, M.D., sailed for Syria, and
located in Damascus. The Synod continued actively and
successfully in this foreign field.
The Synod of the West became unwieldy because of
the extent of its territory, which was stretching out rapidly
toward the west. As a matter of relief the Synod con-
cluded in 1839 to divide into two Synods, the First and
the Second (and subsequently Illinois), subordinate to a
General Synod, composed of delegates from the Presby-
teries. A number of ministers still Hved who had mingled
in the troubles of the old General Synod, and to guard
against the things that proved its ruin, it was provided
that " the General Synod shall have no appellate juris-
diction except in cases of doctrine " ; and also, *' that the
General Synod in all matters overtured to the Presbyteries
224 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
shall be governed in their decision by the majority of the
entire vote of the church thus obtained." That is, that
Presbyteries shall not be counted as units in their answer
to overtures, but that the votes in the Presbyteries should
be reported, and a majority of these should govern the
action of the Synod, so that it may be the voice of the
church.
The constitution of the Associate Reformed Church had
always confined the right of voting for a pastor to male
communicants. The justice of this restriction was often
called in question, so the whole matter of voting in things
spiritual and things temporal was overtured to the Pres-
byteries. In accordance with the answers returned it was
in 1853
Resolved, That Synod affirm that the right of voting for pastors is now ex-
tended to all communing members in the Associate Reformed Church.
Resolved, That, in accordance with the vote of the several Presbyteries, the
extension of the privilege of voting in the temporalities of the church to pew-
holders and those supporting the ordinances be left discretionary with the
Sessions.
As already stated elsewhere, the Associate Reformed
Synod of New York and the General Synod of the Asso-
ciate Reformed Church of the West were united in 1856;
but this new organization continued only for three years,
when it formed a union with the Associate Synod and
constituted the United Presbyterian Church. Its contri-
bution to the united body was 240 ministers, 360 congre-
gations, and over 30,000 communicants.
These uniting bodies sprang from the same source, ever
saw eye to eye in all that pertained to doctrine and wor-
ship, worked along the same lines, operated upon the same
classes of society, mingled together in the same commu-
nities, and entertained friendly relations with each other, and
the wonder always was why they remained apart so long.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE UNION OF 1 858.
In 1837 the General Synod of the Reformed Presby-
terian Church proposed a conference to see if something
could be done to bring the different branches of the Scot-
tish dissenters in this country into closer relations. In
response to this invitation, delegates from the Reformed
Presbyterian Synod and from the Associate Reformed
Synods of New York and the West met in 1838, in- Pitts-
burg, to talk over the matter and find out what difficulties
might be in the way. The social and Christian intercourse
of the delegates was so pleasant and enjoyable that they
made provision for future conferences of the same kind.
In 1842 the Associate Synod joined in and sent delegates
also. After several days' interchange of views, it was
clearly ascertained that there existed a remarkable degree
of harmony, and the following resolution was unanimously
adopted :
Resolved, That, having discussed the prominent subjects upon which a
diversity of sentiment was apprehended to exist, it appears there is such a
degree of unanimity on these subjects that there is encouragement for the
convention to take further measures toward a visible ecclesiastical union.
By this time it became very evident that there was
no greater difference in the views of the delegates of the
different churches than existed among the ministers of
any one of them, and that, in the event of a union, no
church would be called upon to tolerate in those from
other churches anything more than what was already tol-
225
226 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. viii.
erated in Its own. There was in reality no difference in
doctrines and worship, and the only difficulties hinged
upon the modes of expression and the methods of exhibi-
tion. Each party, from long use, had become attached to
its own mode, and felt reluctant to make any change. It
will be remembered that the Associate Reformed Church
at its organization altered those portions of the Confession
of Faith which define the powers of the civil government
circa sacra so as to make them express clearly the belief
of the church. The Associate and the Reformed Churches
retained the original text in their Confession of Faith, and
then in their "Testimony" explained the sense in which
they received it. Yet all these churches held a common
doctrine, and only differed as to where and how they
should proclaim it. The Associate Reformed Church
held the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, Presbyte-
rial Form of Government, and Directory of Worship as her
fixed testiniofiy, and also promised to emit occasional tes-
timonies in defense of the truth and in opposition to error,
as occasions might require. The other churches added to
these standards a *' Narrative " and ''Judicial Testimony "
as being of equal authority. All the churches held the
doctrine in common that the church must bear witness for
the truth and against error. The difference consisted only
in the manner or method of doing so. As no principle
was involved, some compromise in the matter of preference
must be made, and it was finally agreed :
That, in the judgment of this convention, a union between the bodies here
represented can be effected only by an alteration of the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith in the twentieth, the twenty-third, and the thirty-first chap-
ters, and the adoption of a "Judicial Testimony" against prevailing and
dangerous errors of the present times.
Two bases of union were drafted according to the above
direction, and presented and discussed at succeeding con-
CONVENTIONS ABANDONED. 22"]
ventions, but both proved to be unsatisfactory. There
developed two parties : the one insisted upon a compre-
hensive and argumentative testimony, while the other was
equally firm in contending for a brief and simple "Testi-
mony," easily comprehended by the people. Neither would
yield their convictions, and the future became unpromis-
ing. Those that most earnestly desired the union became
thoroughly satisfied, from past experience, that the present
method of procedure would never accomplish the object
desired, and that the whole business had better be begun
anew. Nine annual conventions had been held, and the
difficulties to be removed were positively increasing in-
stead of diminishing. And what else could be expected?
Every convention gave the first and best part of its labors
to the hunting up of difficulties and differences of views.
If enough of these could not be readily found, little things
were magnified, and mole-hills were made into mountains,
so as to accomplish the work. There was never any
greater diversity of views among the different delegates
at any of the meetings than was to be found among the
ministers of each one of the bodies represented ; and if
slight differences could be tolerated in the Synod, why
not in the convention and in the united body? But the
negotiations had generally been confined to a few theo-
logical experts, and they must sustain their reputation and
develop shades of differences, without paying any atten-
tion to the almost endless catalogue of agreements. The
necessary results of such hypercriticism were suspicion, dis-
trust, an improper magnifying of little things, and a wrangle
over metaphysical abstractions which should never appear
in the creed of any church. A cordial union could never be
effected by such means. The scalpel and the microscope
must give place to softer, warmer, and gentler agencies.
Conventions by delegations were in 1848 abandoned,
228 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. viii.
but the effort for union was by no means given up. Ex-
pectation had been excited in the churches, a friendly
feeling had been developed, and the heart of the people
was warmed up, so that they really yearned for union and
close brotherly fellowship. Hitherto the effort had been
confined substantially to the agency of the head, and some
new method must be instituted which would keep the
negotiations nearer to the heart of the people. Henceforth
the work was confined to synodic assemblies, where all
the ministers and many of the elders could have a voice.
When conventions were abandoned the Reformed Pres-
byterians withdrew from any further negotiations, but a
regular correspondence between the synods of the Asso-
ciate and the Associate Reformed Churches was com-
menced, which finally terminated in the offer of a Basis
of Union by the former in 1856 to the latter, which was
overtured to the Presbyteries, and adopted in 1857 by the
General Synod.
The Associate Synod in tendering this basis stated that
in the "Testimony " the declarations only were authorita-
tive, and that the argument and the illustrations which
accompanied each declaration were only useful guides to
the meaning of the declarations. The General Synod in
accepting the basis responded thus :
The Associate Reformed Church does hereby declare her acceptance of the
"Testimony" proposed as a basis of union by the Associate Synod, and
overtured by the General Synod of 1856 to the Presbyteries, in the confidence
that any modifications or amendments necessary to harmonize said basis with
the faith and practice held in common by the two churches, or render it more
entirely acceptable, will be in due time effected by the United Church, and
in the confidence that reasonable forbearance will be exercised toward any
member of either body that may feel constrained to dissent from any article
in the basis.
The Basis of Union thus agreed upon was the West-
minster Confession of Faith, with a modification in refer-
THE " TESTIMONY," 229
ence to the power of the civil magistrate circa sacra, so
as to free it from all Erastianism, the Catechisms, Larger
and Shorter, and a *' Judicial Testimony." The Directory
for Worship and the Book of Discipline of both churches
were allowed to be used until others should be prepared.
The "Judicial Testimony " covered important subjects
which had not been embraced in the Confession, or not
sufficiently elaborated to meet present circumstances. It
consists of eighteen declarations, with arguments and illus-
trations. The arguments and illustrations are only designed
to be useful helps, and not as authoritative utterances.
These declarations are as follows :
1. We declare, That God has not only in the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments made a revelation of his will to man as the only rule of
faith and practice, but that these Scriptures, viewed as a revelation from
God, are in every part the inspired Word of God, and that this inspiration
extends to the language as well as to the sentiments which they express.
2. We declare, That our Lord Jesus Christ is not only true and supreme
God, being one in essence with the Father, but also the Son of God, in re-
spect to his natural, necessary, and eternal relation to the Father.
3. We declare. That God, having created man in a state of perfect holiness
and in possession of a perfect ability to obey him in all things, did enter into
a covenant with him, in which covenant Adam was the representative of all
his natural posterity, so that in him they were to stand or fall as he stood
or fell.
4. We declare, That our first parents did, by their breach of covenant with
God, subject themselves to his eternal wrath, and bring themselves into such
a state of depravity as to be wholly inclined to sin, and altogether unable by
their own power to perform a single act of acceptable obedience to God ; and
that all their natural posterity, in virtue of their representation in the covenant,
are born into the world in the same state of guilt, depravity, and inability,
and in this state will continue until delivered therefrom by the grace and
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. We declare, That our Lord Jesus Christ did, by the appointment of the
Father, and by his own gracious and voluntary act, place himself in the room
of a definite number, who were chosen in him before the foundation of the
world, so that he was their true and proper legal security ; and as such did,
in their behalf, satisfy the justice of God, and answer all the demands which
the law had against them, and thereby infallibly obtain for them eternal re-
demption.
.230 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. viii.
6. We declare, That in justification there is an imputation to the believer
of that righteousness, or satisfaction and obedience, which the Lord Jesus
Christ, as the surety of his people, rendered to the law ; and that it is only
on the ground of this imputed righteousness that his sins are pardoned and
his person accepted in the sight of God.
7. We declare, That the gospel, taken in its strict and proper sense, as
distinguished from the law, is a revelation of grace to sinners as such, and
that it contains a free and unconditional offer and grant of salvation through
Christ to all who hear it, whatever may be their character or condition.
8. We declare, That in true and saving faith there is not merely an assent
of the mind to the proposition that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of
sinners, but also a cordial reception and appropriation of him by the sinner
as his Saviour, with an accompanying persuasion or assurance corresponding
to the degree or strength of his faith that he shall be saved by him, which
appropriation and persuasion are founded solely upon the free and uncon-
ditional and unlimited offer of Christ and salvation in him which God makes
in the gospel to sinners of mankind.
9. We declaj-e. That the repentance which is a saving grace is one of the
fruits of a justifying faith, and of course cannot be regarded as a ground of
the sinner's pardon, or as necessary to qualify him for coming to Christ.
10. We declare. That although the moral law is of perpetual obligation,
and consequently does and ever will bind the believer as a rule of life, yet as
a covenant he is by his justification through Christ completely and forever
set free from it, both as to its commanding and condemning power, and con-
sequently not required to yield obedience to it as a condition of life and sal-
vation.
11. We declare^ That the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity,
does, by a direct operation accompanying the Word, so act upon the soul as
to quicken, regenerate, and sanctify it ; and that without this direct operation
the soul would have no ability to perceive in a saving manner the truths of
God's Word or yield to the motives which it presents.
12. We declare. That our Lord Jesus Christ, besides the dominion which
belongs to him as God, has, as our God-man Mediator, a twofold dominion
with which he has been invested by the Father, as the reward of his suffer-
ings. These are : a dominion over the church, of which he is the living
Head and Law-giver, and Source of all that divine influence and authority
by which she is sustained and governed ; and also a dominion over all created
persons and things, which is exercised by him in subserviency to the mani-
festation of God's glory in the system of redemption and the interests of his
church.
13. We declare. That the law of God, as written upon the heart of man,
and as set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is supreme
in its authority and obligations, and that where the commands of the church
or state are in conflict with the commands of this law, we are to obey God
rather than man.
THE UNION CONSUMMATED. 23 1
14. We declare. That slaveholding — that is, the holding of unoffending
human beings in involuntary bondage, and considering and treating them as
property, and subject to be bought and sold — is a violation of the law of
God, and contrary both to the letter and spirit of Christianity.
15. We declare, That all associations, whether formed for political or be-
nevolent purposes, which impose upon their members an oath of secrecy or
an obligation to obey a code of unknown laws, are inconsistent with the
genius and spirit of Christianity, and church-members ought not to have fel-
lowship with such associations.
16. We declare, That the church should not extend communion, in sealing
ordinances, to those who refuse adherence to her profession or subjection to
her government and discipline, or who refuse to forsake a communion which
is inconsistent with the profession that she makes ; nor should communion in
any ordinance of worship be held under such circumstances as would be in-
consistent with keeping of these ordinances pure and entire, or so as to give
countenance to any corruption of the doctrines and institutions of Christ.
17. We declare. That public social covenanting is a moral duty, the ob-
servance of which is not required at stated times, but on extraordinary oc-
casions, as the providence of God and the circumstances of the church may
indicate. It is seasonable in times of great danger to the church, in times
of exposure to backsliding, or in times of reformation, when the church is
returning to God from a state of backsliding. When the church has entered
into such covenant transactions, they continue to bind posterity faithfully to
adhere to and prosecute the grand object for which such engagements have
been entered into.
18. We declare. That it is the will of God that the songs contained in the
Book of Psalms be sung in his worship, both public and private, to the end
of the world ; and in singing God's praise these songs should be employed
to the exclusion of the devotional compositions of uninspired men.
As the time approached for the consummation of the
union, those who had labored and prayed for it became
very anxious that peace, harmony, and unanimity might
characterize it. As a means to secure all this, a conven-
tion was called to meet at Xenia, O., on the 24th of March,
1858, to seek by united prayer the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit upon the churches, that they might be enabled to
come together in true love and confidence. A very large
number of ministers and laymen from all parts of the
church assembled and spent nearly three days in prayer
and praise and conference, with the happiest effect, and
232 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. viii.
then adjourned to meet in Allegheny, Pa., just before the
assembling of the Synods, where the same delightful ex-
perience was repeated.
Under these circumstances the two Synods met on the
19th of May, 1858, the Associate in Pittsburg and the
Associate Reformed in Allegheny, when the following joint
action was taken by both Synods :
Whereas it is understood that the " Testimony " submitted to the General
Synod of the Associate Reformed Church by the Associate Synod was pro-
posed and accepted as a term of communion, on the adoption of which the
union of the two churches was to be consummated ; and Whereas it is agreed
between the two churches that the forbearance in love, which is required by
the law of God, will be exercised toward any brethren who may not be able
fully to subscribe the standards of the United Church, while they do not
determinedly oppose them, but follow the things which make for peace and
things wherewith one may edify another :
I. Resolved, That these churches, when united, shall be called the United
Presbyterian Church of North America.
[2-6, Resolutions provide for the arranging of Presbyteries, Synods, and a
General Assembly.]
7. Resolved, That these and other regulations found necessary, being
agreed upon by the respective Synods at the present meeting, the two Synods
shall meet at such place as shall mutually be agreed upon, and, after addresses
by Dr. Rodgers and Dr. Pressly and the Rev. J. P. Smart and the Rev. J.
Prestley, be constituted with prayer by the senior moderator, after which a
moderator and clerk shall be chosen by the United Church.
In accordance with the arrangements thus made, the
two Synods met together in the City Hall of Pittsburg,
at ten o'clock, on the 26th of May, 1858, and after prayer
and praise and the contemplated addresses, the new body
was constituted with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Donald C.
McLaren, moderator of the Associate Reformed General
Synod, and Dr. John T. Pressly was chosen by acclamation
as the moderator of the new body, as a grateful recogni-
tion of his invaluable services in promoting the cause of
union for twenty years, and in securing its happy termi-
nation.
CHAPTER IX.
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The first General Assembly of the United Presbyterian
Church met on the i8th of May, 1859, in Xenia, O., was
opened with a sermon by Dr. Pressly, and by him con-
stituted with prayer. Dr. Peter Bullions, of Troy, N. Y.,
was elected moderator, and Dr. James Prestley, stated
clerk. The principal work of this Assembly was to or-
ganize the executive machinery of the new body. It was
decided to place the beneficent operations of the church
in the hands of Boards, elected by and subject to the
supervision of the General Assembly. These Boards were
of Foreign Missions, of Home Missions, of Church Exten-
sion, of Publication, and of Education. In 1863 a Board
of Freedmen's Missions was added, and in 1862 an Aged
Ministers' Fund was organized, which in 1873 developed
into a Board of Ministerial Relief. In March, i860, the
General Assembly was incorporated by the legislature of
Pennsylvania, and its trustees are thus the legal agents
of the church in all her interests outside the chartered
Boards.
The influences and impulses of the union of 1858 were
very benign and happy. A baptism from on high evi-
dently rested upon the new church, reviving and quicken-
ing her in her inner as well as in her outer life, so that she
developed a commendable degree of zeal and of life and
of well-directed activity.
But few incidents have marked the course of the United
233
234 ^-^^ UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. ix.
Presbyterian Church. She has done her work quietly,
and at the same time tried to meet her responsibilities
arising from her surroundings and from the general prog-
ress of the age. Her effort has been, not only to bring
sinners into her fold, but also to guard and promote their
purity when in. The Assembly early put itself on record,
in reference to amusements, one of the most difficult prob-
lems of social life, by resolving :
That the members of the church be exhorted to avoid all association with
men of the world in vain and ensnaring recreations, such as promiscuous
dancing, theatrical exhibitions, and such like amusements as are adapted to
alienate the affections from God and expose the Christian character to re-
proach, and that pastors and sessions be careful to warn those under their
care in relation to the danger of having any fellowship with the world in any
such practice.
The question was asked, *'Are sessions, in receiving per-
sons from the denomination of Arians called Christians^
to require that they be re-baptized ? " The Assembly
answered : " That in our judgment such applicants for fel-
lowship in the church should be regarded as unbaptized
persons, inasmuch as a community of Arians, denying the
true and proper divinity of Jesus and his atonement, by
whatever name they may be denominated, is not entitled
to be considered as a part of the visible church of Christ."
The validity of papal baptism was also answered : '' That
while as a general rule papal baptism should be regarded
as invalid, yet it is believed by many in the church that
there are important exceptions to this rule ; therefore this
Assembly judges it expedient to leave the question of re-
baptizing persons from the papal church to the discretion
of sessions."
The publication of a book upon church fellowship by
one of the pastors produced some local agitation, and a
request was sent up to the Assembly of 1868 to fix more
definitely the authority of sessions in the admission of
INTOXICATING DRINKS. 235
members. This the Assembly declined to do, upon the
ground that the law of the church was sufficiently explicit
already, and that anything further was unnecessary, be-
cause *' the sixteenth article of our ' Testimony ' lays down
the general rule on the subject of communion, by which
the church is to be governed in all ordinary cases. It was
not designed to make provision for cases of an extraordi-
nary nature. When cases of this kind occur, sessions, in
the exercise of a wise discretion, must dispose of them as
may be for the peace and edification of the church."
The subject of temperance, in all its phases, has been
repeatedly before the Assembly, and the following resolu-
tions, selected from the many passed at different times,
will show the unequivocal position of the church upon this
subject.
That the business of manufacturing and vending intoxicating drinks for
drinking purposes is injurious to the best interests of society, and therefore
inconsistent with the law of God, which requires "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself."
That the practice of renting houses to be occupied by those who are en-
gaged in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks to be used as a
beverage, or for immoral purposes, is utterly inconsistent with the honor of
the Christian religion.
That it is inconsistent with membership in the Church of Christ to use or
be engaged in the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.
That church sessions have full authority, and it is their duty, to enforce
the principle of total abstinence where in the exercise of a sound discretion
they have reason to believe the safety of the individual and the honor of
religion require it.
That it is the imperative duty of all the followers of Christ to abstain from
the use of intoxicating drinks of every kind, and that such abstinence is
necessary to a consistent Christian life.
That every church-member should consider himself as pledged, by the
obligations which he assumes, to total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors
as a beverage.
That individual Christians should use all proper means for the suppression
of the liquor traffic — legal prohibition, moral suasion, and the practice of
total abstinence.
That all measures of license or tax are wrong in principle and a failure in
practice.
236 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ix.
That we regard this traffic as an evil which can never be removed without
political action, and that we regard its entire prohibition as the most pressing
political question of the times ; and that it therefore becomes our duty as
Christian citizens, in the careful and prayerful use of the ballot, to meet this
question directly.
That we recognize in the Women's Christian Temperance Union a power-
ful and most efficient ally in the war against the enemy of " God and Home
and Native Land," and we bid them God-speed in their patient, persistent,
heroic, and prayerful efforts to make effective their great battle-cry, " The
saloon must go."
The exclusive use of the Psalms of Scripture in formal
acts of praise has always been one of the distinctive
peculiarities of the Scottish Presbyterian churches in this
country. They brought Rouse's version, as improved and
authorized by the Church of Scotland, with them from
their fatherland, and continued to use it because they
regarded it as the most faithful poetic translation of the
original. Its literary imperfections were well known, and
the desirableness and even necessity of some improvement
were early felt. As early as 1 809 the Associate Reformed
General Synod appointed a committee to see what could
be done in the matter. In 1825 the attention of the Asso-
ciate Church was called to this subject, and eventually
a committee was appointed to do something. In 1835
the Associate Reformed Synod of New York appointed a
committee to procure an improved version, and soon after-
ward the Synod of the West did the same. None of these
movements accomplished their immediate object, and yet
they did much to prepare the way. They voiced a strong
desire in the church, and they made the subject a familiar
topic of conversation among the ministers and the people,
and thus did something toward liberalizing that ultra-
conservatism which stands in the way of every advance.
They educated the tastes and wishes of the people so as
to make the introduction of a new version possible, and
the various committees appointed spent considerable time
IMPROVED PSALMODY. 237
and labor in their work, and accumulated a large amount
of matter which was utilized in the final accomplishment
of the work.
The first General Assembly took up this matter just
where the Synods had laid it down, and appointed a com-
mittee to continue the work, with the instruction, '* That
the version of the Book of Psalms now used by the United
Presbyterian Church be retained without any change that
would affect its integrity. And to be used in connection
with this it is desirable to have an entirely new version of
equal fidelity, and up to the present state of literature and
laws of versification." This committee, in connection with
the Board of Publication, had the subject under considera-
tion for ten years, and then submitted an amended edition
of the version in use, and also other versions of nearly all
the Psalms in a variety of meters. These were approved
by the Assembly in 187 1, and authorized to be used, and
were very soon and very generally introduced into the
churches. These Psalms were soon set to appropriate
music and published together as the Psalter of the church.
Children are generally fond of lively, quick, moving
tunes, and the conviction became strong that much of the
solemn and stately music which befitted the congregation
was not equally suitable to the Sabbath-school ; and as the
children are the future church, it was felt that their tastes
and aptitude should be consulted. To meet this want,
a smaller book, '* Bible Songs," has been prepared. It
consists of selections from the authorized versions of the
Psalms with music to suit the taste of the young, and
especially designed for use in the Sabbath-school and in
the meetings of the Young People's Christian Union. The
result of all this has been a greatly improved service of
song, equal in all essential things to that of any of the
sister churches.
238 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ix.
The Directory of Worship of the United Presbyterian
Church, in common with that of all its antecedents, pro-
hibited the use of instrumental music in church praises.
But as the culture of music became more general and
musical instruments more numerous in our homes, there
was a growing desire, especially among the young, to carry
the musical culture of the family into the praises of the
sanctuary. The subject was overtured to the presbyteries,
and it resulted, in 1882, in the removal of the prohibitory
rule from the Directory, thereby leaving the church with-
out any express law on the subject. Many congregations,
feeling that they were now at liberty to do as they pleased,
have introduced instruments into their church services, and
still more into their Sabbath- schools and Young People's
Meetings.
Many years ago female missionary societies were more
or less common in many of the congregations, but only as
part of the machinery for raising the annual contribution
to the church boards. There was no effort toward the
diffusion of intelligence or the excitement of a missionary
spirit. Their work was done quietly and according to
established routine. But in the process of time, as the
church grew more active and evangelistic, and social cus-
toms relaxed and changed, allowing greater freedom to
women, they became more interested and gave themselves
more intelligently and heartily to church work. Congre-
gational societies were formed all over the church, and to
help and stimulate each other they formed closer relations
and combined into presbyterial and synodic organizations.
In recognition of their valuable assistance the General
Assembly encouraged them to form a general missionary
society to cover the whole church, and to work through a
regularly incorporated ''Women's Board," auxiliary to the
established boards of the church. A missionary magazine
CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS. 239
has been established as its organ, and much assistance has
been rendered in building parsonages for feeble churches
in important fields, in supporting female helpers in the
home fields and female missionaries in the foreign work,
and supporting two hospitals in India.
When the Christian Endeavor movement started up,
and appealed to the young in all the churches to make an
organized effort to raise the standard of their own piety,
and also to do what they could for the conversion of the
young people around them, the United Presbyterian Church
quickly sympathized with it, and made arrangements for
a denominational organization of this kind, and named it
the ''Young People's Christian Union." It was readily
and heartily taken up by the people, and nearly every
congregation has a society, and a convention composed
of delegates from all these is held every year, to encour-
age and stimulate each other, and to devise measures for
greater usefulness. The movement thus far has been
healthy, and has certainly helped to develop the young
mentally and morally, and enable them to take a more
willing and active part in church work.
CHAPTER X.
EDUCATION.
Our ecclesiastical ancestors were stern Calvinists, and
the teachings and necessities of their religion constrained
them to bring the schoolmaster with them. And although
generally poor in this world's goods when they landed
upon our shores, yet they made great personal sacrifices
to establish educational institutions at the earliest possible
time. And what they did in this line was not to promote
learning for its own sake, but to make it auxiliary to the
advancement of religious truth. They built their school-
house near their church, and very often hired the school-
master before they settled their pastor. The facilities for
an extended education were not at once within their reach,
but the means for the acquisition of a fair primary educa-
tion were at once provided for and utilized by their chil-
dren. And in so doing they always united education'and
religion, and never allowed them to be separated either
in the schoolhouse or the church. They believed that
the exclusive education of the head might develop infidel-
ity, just as the exclusive education of the heart might
result in fanaticism. So to make the well-balanced man,
they united the education of the head and of the heart,
and they generally succeeded.
Before the advent of free schools the Westminster
Shorter Catechism was taught in all our day-schools, and
every family was then a Sabbath- school. A new question
was exacted of the beginner every Monday morning, and
240
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 24 1
the whole was repeated on Saturday. And there were
no exempts. If a child from a Lutheran or Methodist
family was in the school, he went through the whole cur-
riculum, and his parents were glad to have it so. After
mastering the headings in the spelling-book and some
primer, the only other reading-book was the Bible. The
New Testament was read by the junior class, and the Old
Testament by the seniors. Reverence for God and man
was thus inculcated, and good manners were also taught,
so that if a scholar allowed a stranger to pass without a
bow or a curtsey it was at the risk of chastisement.
In proportion to her numbers and wealth this church
stands second to no denomination in the country in her
effort to establish and sustain schools of a higher order.
The first classical school west of the Susquehanna was
established by the Rev. Alexander Dobbin, at Rock Creek,
now Gettysburg, Pa., where between 1788 and 1799 he
prepared for college scores of young men who became
eminent in both church and State. The pioneer academy
in New York north of Albany was opened in 1780, at
Salem, and the same course was pursued all through the
West, in Chillicothe, O., Lexington, Ky., etc. She helped
to establish Jefferson College, at Canonsburg, Pa., and the
Western University, at Pittsburg, and Franklin College,
at New Athens, O., and Transylvania University, at Lex-
ington, Ky., and Miami University, at Oxford, O. And
then, realizing that it was safe, if not the safest, for the
church to educate her own youth in institutions under her
immediate control, she successfully established Westminster
College, at New Wilmington, Pa., Muskingum College, at
New Concord, O., Monmouth College, at Monmouth, III,
Tarkio College, at Tarkio, Mo., and Cooper Memorial, at
Sterling, Kan. And these are all open to both male and
female professors and students, and of the latter sex there
242 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. x.
are not a few. This is certainly a fair showing for one
of the small tribes of Israel, which can boast of very few
members of large wealth. The money has been contrib-
uted by the small gifts of those in moderate circumstances.
And in the matter of theological education the United
Presbyterian Church is a pioneer in this country. The
men who first planted her banners here had received a
thorough university training, and were never disposed to
lower the standard by the admission of half- educated ex-
horters. Sorely as she needed more laborers, she was not
willing to provide any short cut into the ministry. For
some time she had to import her helpers from abroad, but
this supply was insufficient and precarious, and had a
tendency to keep the church as an exotic in the land. As
soon as the independence of our country was recognized
and quiet secured, the training of ministers became a
pressing question, and the Reformed Dutch Church led
the way, and formally opened a theological school on the
19th of May, 1785, in the Garden Street Church in New
York City, under the administration of Dr. J. H. Living-
ston and Dr. H. Meyer, which still lives in New Bruns-
wick, N. J. The United Presbyterian Church in both her
branches came next. On the 21st of April, 1794, Dr.
John Anderson was elected professor of theology by the
Associate Church, and a two-story log building was im-
mediately erected at Service Creek, Beaver County, Pa.,
the lower story to serve as a library and lecture- room, and
the upper as a dormitory for the students. The course
of study covered four winters, but was not as extensive in
its range of subjects as it is now in our highly endowed
seminaries, but as far as it did go it was more thorough.
It was confined very largely to an exhibition of Script-
ure truths, with the suggestive help of Dr. John Marck's
*' Medulla and Compend," and no diHgent student could
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 243
fail to become very familiar with the Bible in its letter and
substance and spirit. There was not so much secondary
or miscellaneous knowledge crowded in as to push the
Bible aside — a mistake from which all modern seminaries
are not altogether free. This seminary was transferred
in 1 82 1 to Canonsburg, and in 1855 to Xenia, O., where,
with a faculty of four professors, it is still doing a good
work.
In the Associate Reformed Synod, the other branch of
the United Presbyterian Church, an act was passed in
1796 to provide a fund for the assisting of pious young
men into the ministry, and also to raise means for the es-
tablishment of a theological school. To further this latter,
Dr. John M. Mason visited Great Britain in 1801, and re-
mained almost a year abroad collecting books and money.
But it was not until November, 1805, that the seminary
opened in New York with eight students, under the presi-
dency of Dr. Mason. The course covered four years, the
annual session continued seven months. This *' Mason
Seminary," as it was very frequently called, became quite
celebrated, and educated many distinguished men. At
the union of 1822 it was suspended, but in 1829 was re-
opened at Newburg, N. Y., where it did a good work
until 1878, when it was closed. The four seminaries of
the church have been consolidated into two, and thus the
expense has been reduced, while the efficiency of those
that remain has been increased.
When the Associate Reformed Synod of the West be-
came an independent body, it also took immediate meas-
ures to educate its own ministers, and in 1825 estabhshed
a theological school in Pittsburg, which has since been
moved across the river to Allegheny. Here, after edu-
cating nearly a thousand young men, it still exists, well
housed and partly endowed, and has a faculty of four
244 ^-^^ UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap, x,
resident professors. In 1839 this Synod opened a second
seminary, at Oxford, O., which was subsequently moved
to Monmouth, 111., and finally combined with the semi-
nary previously located at Xenia, O.
The church always has insisted upon a thorough train-
ing for the ministry, exacting a full collegiate course, with
the addition of at least three years of special theological
study. This has been done in the belief that what the
church loses in the three or four years of delay in enter-
ing upon the ministry is more than gained in the greater
efficiency secured by the better preparation. While the
church has thus always had well- trained men in her min-
istry, very few of them have distinguished themselves as
authors. This has not been for lack of ability, but main-
ly from a want of opportunity. The church has never
abounded in this world's goods, and has had no places of
ease and leisure where its ministers could pursue favorite
lines of investigation. Their pastoral charges have gener-
ally been laborious, and called for all their time and talent,
so that very few have attempted anything beyond a single
volume, or magazine articles or newspaper contributions.
CHAPTER XL
THE BOARDS OF THE CHURCH.
To concentrate and economize her resources, the church
has committed her evangelistic work to the direction of
boards, the members of which are chosen by the General
Assembly. The Board of Home Missions has the over-
sight of the field to be supplied and cultivated, and also
of all the licentiates and unsettled ministers who are will-
ing to receive appointments, and assigns them their places.
It thus tries to supply the needy with the gospel, and also
to bring ministers into contact with vacant congregations
that are seeking pastors. It has always found a very wide
field — a field both needy and solicitous, even importunate
— and its success has been exceedingly gratifying. The
Board of Church Extension cooperates with it, and has
assisted hundreds of missions and feeble congregations to
build their churches and parsonages, many of which could
never have been able to maintain their existence without
such help. By making new congregations more quickly
self-supporting and contributing churches, this board has
saved to the Home Mission funds a larger amount of
money than has been expended in help to build houses.
Just as soon as the Civil War began to interfere with
slavery in the border States, the United Presbyterian
Church, in accordance with her antislavery principles, be-
gan to look after the waifs that were cast upon the world
without home or friend. When the government estab-
lished *' contraband camps " to care for the fugitive slaves,
the church sent to them teachers and preachers, male and
24s
246 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xi.
female, to talk and preach, and teach day-schools and
night-schools and Sabbath-schools. These camps were
temporary, and constantly changing their location and in-
mates, according to the fortunes of war, and the church's
work had to change accordingly. Everything was dis-
jointed and unorganized and haphazard until the war was
over and society settled down. Then the General Assem-
bly established a *' Board of Missions to the Freedmen,"
the object of which *' shall be to educate the freemen of
the South in secular and religious knowledge, by establish-
ing and supporting schools and churches among them, and
by such other means as are appropriate to missionary
operations." The board soon realized that the colored
church in the South must be enlightened and reformed
and built up by native instrumentalities of its own color
and production, and so it devotes its efforts mainly to
train a body of well-educated and spiritually enlightened
ministers and teachers. Large and flourishing schools
and congregations have been established and maintained
at Miller's Ferry, Ala., Chase City, and Bluestone, Va.,
Henderson, N. C, and Athens, Tenn. There is also in
Norfolk, Va., a collegiate institute, with high-school and
normal school departments, with an enrollment of from
six to eight hundred students. And in Knoxville, Tenn.,
there is a college with a full faculty and a large enrollment
of students, which has a primary, a high-school, a normal,
a scientific, a commercial, an industrial, a classical, and a
theological department, and is authorized to give diplomas
in the arts and sciences. The good accomplished by these
institutions has not been merely local, for they have sent
forth hundreds of well-instructed males and females who
are employed as teachers in the schools of nearly all the
Southern States. And as these have all been carefully
instructed in the Scriptures while in school, and many of
FREEDMEN— FOREIGN MISSIONS. 247
them converted, they work, to some extent, as domestic
missionaries in their respective localities.
The United Presbyterian Church has always recognized
that it was a *' debtor both to the Greeks and to the bar-
barians," and that its commission was, *' Go ye and teach
all nations." Both of its original branches undertook for-
eign missionary work before they were sufficiently strong
to secure success, the one in India and the other in the
island of Trinidad. But failure here did not discour-
age them from further effort, for in 1844 the Associate
Reformed Church established a mission in Damascus, in
Syria, with special reference to the descendants of Abra-
ham, eight thousand of whom resided in that ancient city,
of which Eliezer, the steward of Abram's house, was a na-
tive. The missionaries were instructed to address them-
selves *' to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." This
field had been regarded as a particularly hard one — so un-
promising, from Jewish bigotry and Mohammedan fanati-
cism, that other churches that had planted mission stations
in Syria had not hitherto seen their way clear to enter
Damascus. But the result was a fair degree of success,
and Irish and Scottish missionaries came and joined with
them. In 1853 the mission was divided and several of
the missionaries were sent to Cairo, in Egypt, to begin a
work there. During the massacre of i860 some of the
missionaries were killed, and all the others were compelled
to flee. After the trouble had passed the mission was
again rebuilt in Damascus, but subsequently transferred to
the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, which still maintains
it, that more force might be concentrated upon the work
in Egypt. And in this land of the Pharaohs the mission-
aries have been remarkably blessed. After many trials
and rebuffs they have secured not only government pro-
tection, but even government favor and patronage in many
248 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xr.
things. They have stations In the principal cities of the
Delta, and scattered all along the Nile, from Mansoora to
Assouan. They have a college and a female seminary
at Asyoot, with a very respectable course of study, and
a large enrollment of students from the towns in upper
Egypt, also a theological seminary and a monthly periodi-
cal in Cairo. This mission reported, in 1893, 31 organized
congregations, 125 mission stations, with a roll of 3891
communicants; also 113 day-schools and 7313 scholars,
and 117 Sabbath- schools, with 6266 scholars. There are
44 foreign missionaries, 30 native ministers, and 251 other
native helpers. The churches contributed, during 1892,
$10,888 for their own support. The schools raised $13,-
538, and the Sabbath-schools $300. Including Scriptures,
religious and educational books, 38,455 volumes were sold
for $8244. This mission is having a very positive and
healthy influence upon both the government and people
of Egypt, for a very large portion of the clerks in the ser-
vice of the government and of the post-office and the rail-
roads have been educated in its schools, and are familiar
with the doctrines of Christianity. And the success of
these schools has stimulated the government and the Cop-
tic Church to establish more and better schools in compe-
tition with the ''American " schools.
In 1854 the Associate Church sent out three mission-
aries to found a mission In India. They selected the city
of Sialkot, in the Punjaub, had many difficulties to contend
with, and were almost wrecked by the Sepoy rebellion and
massacre. But by perseverance and hard work, with the
divine blessing, they succeeded and established a good
and firm basis, and as the work widened and new mission-
aries arrived, they occupied new places, until they have
stretched across the whole northeastern end of the Land
of the Five Rivers, from Gurdaspur to Rawal Pindi. Con-
MINISTERIAL RELIEF— PUBLICATION. 249
gregations have been organized, schools have been estab-
lished, including a college and theological seminary. The
missionary force has so increased, both foreign and native,
as to be distributed into three Presbyteries under the care
of a Synod, and the communion roll contains 6750 names.
Much of the success of this mission can be traced to the
fact that they ** sow beside all waters." Other and older
missions had tried to bring their teaching to bear especially
upon members of the higher castes, supposing that when
such are converted they would exert a stronger influence
upon general society. This mission has acted upon a dif-
ferent plan : while it neglects no caste, it pays special at-
tention to the lowest castes, and even those below all caste,
because they are the most accessible and impressible, and
more souls can be saved. And also because the reforma-
tion and elevation of persons so low become object-lessons
which illustrate the transforming and elevating power of
Christianity much more strongly than could the conversion
of high- caste persons, in whom the apparent change must
necessarily be much less.
The Board of Education has been very efficient in help-
ing a large number of young men into the ministry of the
church, and the Board of Ministerial Relief has brought
joy and comfort to many disabled and superannuated
ministers, and to the widows and orphans of those who
had given their time and talents to the work of the church
rather than to the laying up of worldly gain. The Board of
Publication owns a well-equipped business house in Pitts-
burg, and supplies the church with all necessary denomi-
national literature, particularly Psalters and " Bible Songs,**
and Sabbath-school papers and lesson helps. The church
is fully supplied with all the organizations and machinery
necessary for the carrying on of healthy and aggressive
church work at home and abroad.
250 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xi.
The growth of the United Presbyterian Church has not
been rapid, and never spasmodic, and yet it has always
made steady and healthy progress. Its annual percentage
of increase has been fully up to that of a majority of the
other denominations of our country. Excluded from the
South because of slavery, it has had but Httle opportunity
to expand in that direction, although the early settlers
belonged to that class of people that was favorable to its
creed and its worship. And it did have in Kentucky and
the Carolinas a very respectable membership, until slavery
became the dominant issue. South of the Ohio it has now
but one small Presbytery in Tennessee, and in the great
Northwest, into which Scandinavians and other Northern
peoples are crowding, it has only a few scattered congre-
gations. Its home is in the middle belt of country that
stretches across our continent. It was planted there by
and among the Scotch- Irish, and as migration generally
follows the same latitude, it moved westward with the
people, planting its congregations more or less thickly
from Boston on the Atlantic to San Diego and Seattle on
the Pacific. If its creed had been more elastic and its
entrance wider, it could have boasted of greater numbers.
CHAPTER XII.
DENOMINATIONAL ATTITUDE.
Denominationalism is not necessarily either sin or
schism, ahhough by arrogance and intolerance it may
become both. Wisely and properly used, it is a gracious
arrangement of Providence adapted to the mental and
emotional diversities of men. It always has existed, and
there is nothing in the Scriptures or reason why it should
not continue to exist. '' Can two walk together except
they be agreed ? " Men will differ in tastes and tempera-
ments, so that they can worship and labor most pleasantly
and profitably with those of like feelings and opinions ; and
unity and affection are often subserved and promoted by
keeping the incongruous apart. The bringing together of
such would not produce unity, but collision.
The history of sectarianism clearly reveals the fact that
every denomination has a special and specific reason for
its segregation. That reason may not commend itself to
the judgment of the student that views it objectively as
an outsider and a stranger, but studied from the inner and
more favorable standpoint of a member trained to a kindly
familiarity with it, it reveals to him a beauty and a power
that satisfy his mind and make its avowal a duty. The
United Presbyterian Church has, or claims to have, spe-
cific and sufficient grounds for its separate and independent
existence without schism : and that while it is glad to recog-
nize and work with all other Christians who hold, in com-
mon with it, so many precious gospel truths, still there
251
252 THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. xii.
are certain truths of vital importance which it considers a
pleasure and duty to emphasize with special force. And
foremost of these are the crown rights of Jesus — rights
that would crown him Lord of all.
Both of the parties which joined to form the United
Presbyterian Church had their origin in the defense of the
headship of Jesus in the church. When Charles II. came
to the throne of Great Britain, he arrogated to himself the
right to dictate to the Church of Scotland, and, through
the Cabal in Edinburgh, forced upon it a government and
discipline and worship contrary to its own Confession and
the consciences of its members. Many were grieved by
this subjection of the church to the state, yet only a few
had the courage to resist unto blood against the dethrone-
ment of their ascended Lord. These contended that
Christ's kingdom was not of this world, and that the civil
ruler, as such, had no right to give it laws or dispense its
privileges, for that our God-man Mediator was its Hving
Head and only Law-giver. For their loyalty to these
crown rights of Jesus they suffered the crudest possible
persecution for many years, and when toleration did come
it only brought relief to the body and not to the con-
science, for the new king claimed a royal supremacy in the
church, and they renewed their protest, and their children
in this country cherished their memory and taught their
creed.
The other Scottish ancestor of the United Presbyterian
Church sprang from the same cause, a contest for the
royal prerogatives of Jesus. The civil government had
so invaded the autonomy of the church as to force upon
it a system of patronage which disfranchised its freemen
and subjected its courts and pulpits to the dictation of
strangers who were also in many instances reprobates.
Some, who would not submit quietly to see Jesus thus
HEADSHIP OF JESUS— PECULIARITIES. 253
dishonored and dethroned, protested and stood upon the
defense, and bore reproach and persecution and worldly
loss. What the Covenanters and Seceders thus did the
followers of the Relief and of the Free Church have since
felt constrained to do, even with less cause.
When these parties in this country came to see eye to
eye, they inscribed the headship of Christ high upon their
banner, and the Associate Reformed Church was the first
of the American churches to alter the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith on the subject of the civil magistrate, and
to exclude from it all traces of Erastianism. The United
Presbyterian Church has been true to the faith and tradi-
tions of its ancestors, and has given special prominence to
the declaration :
That our Lord Jesus Christ, besides the dominion which belongs to him
as God, has, as our God-man Mediator, a twofold dominion with which he
has been invested by the Father, as the reward of his sufTerings. These
are : a dominion over the church, of which he is the living Head and Law-
giver, and the Source of all that divine influence and authority by which she
is sustained and governed ; and also a dominion over all created persons
and things, which is exercised by him in subserviency to the manifestation of
God's glory in the system of redemption and the interests of his church.
The United Presbyterian Church, through all its history,
has also been unchanging in its loyalty to the Bible, re-
garding it as the Word of God, and, as such, necessarily
inerrant. For all its creed and works it exacts a '' Thus
saith the Lord," and holds that all church courts are only
executive bodies that have no right to legislate or to shape
the faith and practices of the church upon the ground
merely of taste or sentiment or expediency or availability.
Their business is to carry out wisely and further efficiently
just what the Word of God teaches and warrants. This
conservatism gives rise to what may be regarded as special
peculiarities.
The church restricts its formal praise service to the
254 "^HE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xii.
Psalms of the Bible, because they have been given by the
Spirit to be used in praise, and have been sung with joy
and comfort by Jesus and the apostles and martyrs and
Huguenots and Covenanters and Puritans, and are there-
fore certainly safe and profitable, and adapted to every
age and condition. It restricts sacramental communion to
those known to be reputable professors, because its duty
is to keep pure and entire all such religious worship and
ordinances as God hath appointed in his Word, and to
preserve purity and discipHne in his house. It also ex-
cludes all those that bind themselves together by oath to
secrecy, or obedience to a code of unknown laws, because
that might lead into diverse temptations, and restrict or
violate that law of love and wide fraternity which says,
** Sirs, ye are brethren."
But this church is not founded upon such distinctives
alone, for it teaches the Calvinistic theology in its purity
and fullness. It is not open to the charge of narrowness,
which some indeed have ignorantly alleged against it, for
its basis is unusually wide — too wide for the liberal theo-
logian of the day. Whatever the Holy Spirit has deemed
of sufficient importance to reveal, it regards of sufficient
importance to believe and teach. It has especially em-
phasized certain fundamental doctrines, which it thinks
are too much overlooked or underestimated in our day,
to the reception of which it requires both ministers and
members to assent — such as the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures, the eternal sonship of Christ, human inability,
nature and extent of the atonement, imputed righteous-
ness, the gospel offer, saving faith, evangelical repentance,
the believer's deliverance from the law as a covenant, and
the work of the Holy Spirit.
Guarding thus the theology of the pulpit and of the
pews, the United Presbyterian Church thinks it has a place
CONSERVATIVE. 255
and a mission. It is homogeneous, and leaves no place
for a faction to war upon its creed. It has never lowered
its standard for the sake of numbers, or employed human
expedients to gain popularity, or in any way made an
effort simply to please the people. Conservative in faith
yet aggressive in works, it has found hitherto no better
way to reach the masses than by preaching plainly and
fully the old story of the cross, in connection with a sim-
ple worship, and in entire dependence upon the Holy
Spirit for the fruit. And the Lord has graciously granted
a fair measure of success.
STATISTICS OF 1893.
Synods I3
Presbyteries 62
Ministers 891
Members 1 1 1,000
Congregations 935
Sabbath -schools I> 15^
Teachers and scholars 108,023
Congregational Missionary Societies 861
Young People's Societies 664
Members of same 29,000
Parsonages 257
Congregational expenses $1,000,000
Contributions to the Boards $300,000
Other contributions $100,000
Average per member $14
Males 44,000
Females 67,000
A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
BY
ROBERT V. FOSTER,
Professor of Biblical Exegesis in the Theological School of Cumberland
University, Lebanon, Tennessee. .
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1
Historical Works.
Beard, Richard, D.D., Biographical Sketches of the Early Ministers of
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 1867, 2 vols.
Blake, T. C, Old Log House : History and Defense of the Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church. 1878.
Chrisman, E. B., D.D., Origin and Doctrines of the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church. 1875.
Cossitt, F. R., D.D., The Life and Times of the Rev. Finis Ewing, one
of the Fathers and Founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
1853.
Davidson, Robert, History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, with
a Preliminary Sketch of the Churches in the Valley of Virginia. New
York, 1847.
Liindsley, J. B., D.D., Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian
History (in the Theological Medium, Nashville, Tenn., 1877—78).
Lowry, David, Life of Rev. Robert Donnell. 1867.
McDonnold, B. W., D.D., History of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church. 1888. (Much the fullest work hitherto published on this sub-
ject.)
Semi-Centemiial Exercises and Addresses. 1880.
Smith., Rev. James, History of the Christian Church, Lncluding a History
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 1835.
Doctrinal Works.
Beard, Richard, D.D. (formerly professor of systematic theology in Cum-
berland University, Lebanon, Tenn. ), Lectures on Theology. 1870, 3 vols.
— Why a??i La Cumberland Presbyterian ? 1874.
Blake, T. C, D.D., Cojnpetid of Theology. 1880.
Burney, S. G., D.D., The Doctrine of Election. 1879. — Baptismal Re-
generation. 1880. — Atonement and Law Reviewed. 1888. — Studies in
Psychology. 1 891.
Darby, W. J., D.D., Our Position (a pamphlet). 1889.
Donnell, Rev. Robert (one of the framers of the Confession of Faith of
1814), Thoughts on Various Theological Subjects. 1852.
Ewing, Rev. Finis, Lectures on Theological Subjects. 1824.
Foster, R. V., D.D., A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. 1891.
Howard, J. M., D.D., Creed and Constitution of the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church, with a Historical Lntroduction. 1885.
Miller, A. B., D.D., Doctrine and Genius of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church. 1892.
Schaff's Creeds of Christendom (vol. iii., pp. 771-776) contains a parallel
exhibit of the Westminster and the Cumberland Presbyterian Confes-
sions.
1 All the books here mentioned, unless otherwise stated, are published by
the Cumberland Presbyterian Publication House, Nashville, Tenn.
258
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBY-
TERIANS.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN AND NAME.
The first Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church was organized on the fourth day of February,
iSio. The three ministers who organized it were Finis
Ewing, Samuel King, and Samuel McAdow. It was
named Cumberland Presbytery for the two following
reasons :
1. The country in which it originated — a portion of
southwestern Kentucky and an adjoining part of Tennessee
— was known in those days as the Cumberland country.
The Cumberland River flowed through it ; Nashville was
not far within its southern border; and near its western
extremity, in what is now called Dixon County, Tenn,, the
Presbytery was organized.
2. There had been a Presbytery in the " mother " church
called Cumberland Presbytery. It had been created by the
Kentucky Synod in 1802, and was the southwestern part of
the divided Transylvania Presbytery. In October, 1805, it
held its last meeting, and in 1 806 it was formally dissolved
by the Kentucky Synod. When the ministers above men-
tioned, and who had been members of it, reorganized it
independently, they gave it the old name. And that is
the reason why there happens to be a Cumberland Presby-
terian Church — so far, at least, as the name is concerned.
259
CHAPTER 11.
CAUSES.
But why did the Kentucky Synod of the Presbyterian
Church dissolve its Cumberland Presbytery ? The answer
in brief is : It all grew out of that event, so notable in the
early history of Presbyterianism in this country, ** the re-
vival of 1800." There were no schools in those days for
it to grow out of. The country abounded chiefly in un-
saved souls, sparse though the population then would now
be called. Presbyterianism was relatively strong, but it
was not adapting itself to its situation ; it was not meet-
ing the evangelical demands made upon it by its surround-
ings ; it lacked the divine skill to protect its orthodoxy and
evangelize the country at the same time. Events have
shown, even to its own satisfaction, that it was not as wise
as a serpent, and that consequently it was not as harmless
as a dove — not in its actions, at least, whatever may be
said of its heart. And so it naturally came to pass that
every imagination of the thoughts of men's hearts, in the
Cumberland country, and in the Transylvania country also,
was growing evil continually, and the outward indifference
toward evangelical religion corresponded, of course, with
the prevailing inward infidelity. If the current Presby-
terianism did not, either positively or negatively, inculcate
fatalism and encourage an unwholesome formalism, it was
popularly supposed to do so, and not many Presbyterian
ministers, it seems, took any special pains to make men
see to the contrary. If they did, they failed.
In this connection the name of James McGready is one
260
JAMES MCGREADY. 26 1
always to be mentioned. It was under his evangelistic
ministry in the Cumberland country that matters were
rapidly moved on to the crisis. He was born in North
Carolina, but studied under the Rev. John McMillan in
western Pennsylvania.
About 1786 he, by accident, overheard a conversation between two of his
friends, of which he was the subject. They freely expressed their views
about his religious character, declaring that, though a minister in the Presby-
terian Church, he was a mere formalist, a stranger to regenerating grace.
This led him to earnest self-examination and prayer, and at a sacramental
meeting near the Monongahela River he found the new spiritual life which
his friends had declared he lacked. This new experience transformed his
whole life. Thenceforth he made it his mission to arouse false professors,
to awaken a dead church, and warn sinners and lead them to seek the new
spiritual life which he himself had found. In North Carolina, whither he
went as pastor, extensive revivals were kindled. His ministry also aroused
fierce opposition. He was accused of " running people distracted," diverting
them from necessary avocations, " creating needless alarm about their souls."
The opposers, we are told, went so far at one time as to tear away and burn
his pulpit, and send him a threatening letter written in blood, l
McGready moved to Logan County, Ky. — a part of the
Cumberland country — in 1796, and became the pastor of
several Presbyterian churches. Here, as in North Caro-
lina, his sermons were ** a ringing alarm," and everywhere
either awakened penitence or aroused opposition ; and the
opposition, strange to say, was encouraged and led by those
who should rather have been foremost in seeking and sav-
ing the lost. They taught the people that they need not
give themselves any trouble on the subject of experimental
reHgion, and one of them went about the country ridiculing
in his sermons " the doctrines of faith, of repentance, and of
regeneration."^ But many were not of this sort. In 1803
the Rev. David Rice, of the Kentucky Synod, preached a
sermon before that body in reference to this revival. His
testimony is perhaps worth quoting here at some length,
1 Dr. J. M. Howard in Hays's " Presbyterians."
2 Dr. McMullen's MS., quoted in McDonnold's " History."
262 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
as it is unprejudiced evidence that the revivalists were no
fantastic New Lights, and that the work was due to a
genuine outpouring of God's Spirit. He says:
This revival has made its appearance in various places without any ex-
traordinary means to produce it. . . . The revival appears to be granted in
answer to prayer, and in confirmation of that gracious truth that God has
" not said to the house of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain," when he says he will
be inquired of by the house of Israel to- do it for them.
As far as I can see, there appears to be in the subjects of this work a deep,
heart-humbling sense of the great unreasonableness, abominable nature,
pernicious effects, and deadly consequences of sin ; and the absolute un-
worthiness in the sinful creature of the smallest crumb of mercy from the
hand of a holy God. . . . Jesus Christ, and him crucified, appears to be
the " all in all" to the subjects of this revival, and the creature nothmg, and
less than nothing.
They seem to have a very deep and affecting sense of the worth of precious
immortal souls, ardent love to them, and an agonizing concern for their con-
viction, conversion, and complete salvation. . . . Neighborhoods noted for
their vicious and profligate manners are now as much noted for their piety
and good order. Drunkards, profane swearers, liars, quarrelsome persons,
etc., are remarkably reformed. ... A number of families who had lived
apparently without the fear of God, in folly and in vice, without any religious
instruction or any proper government, are now reduced to order, and are
daily joining in the worship of God, reading his Word, singing his praises,
and offering up their supplications to a throne of grace.
Parents who seemed formerly to have little or no regard for the salvation
of their children are now anxiously concerned for their salvation, are pleading
for them, and endeavoring to lead them to Christ and train them up in the
way of piety and virtue. . . .
The subjects of this work appear to be very sensible of the necessity of
sanctification as well as justification, and that holiness without which no man
can see the Lord ; to be desirous that they and all that name the name of
Christ should depart from iniquity. . . .
Now I have given you my reasons for concluding the morning is come, and
that we are blessed with a real revival of the benign and heaven-born religion
of Jesus Christ, which demands our grateful acknowledgments to God the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, i
Numerous similar testimonies might be quoted from
such Presbyterians as the Rev. David Nelson, the Rev. Dr.
1 Quoted in McDonnold's " History," from the Rev. Dr. Speer, whose
history and unqualified indorsement of the revival was published by the
Presbyterian Publishing Board, Philadelphia.
REVIVAL IN THE CUMBERLAND COUNTRY. 263
George Baxter, and the Rev. Dr. A. Alexander. For a
series of years from the beginning of the revival in 1797
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church gave
its testimony to its precious fruits. In 1 803 it thus speaks
concerning the work in the Cumberland country :
In many Southern and Western presbyteries revivals of a more extensive
and of a more extraordinary nature have taken place. It would be easy for
the Assembly to select some very remarkable instances of the triumphs of
divine grace which were exhibited before them in the course of the very in-
teresting narratives presented in the free conversation — instances of the most
malignant opposers of vital piety being convinced and reconciled ; of some
learned, active, and conspicuous infidels becoming signal monuments of that
grace which they once despised ; and various circumstances which display the
holy efficacy of the gospel. ... In the course of the last year there is rea-
son to believe that several thousands within the bounds of the Presbyterian
Church have been brought to embrace the gospel of Christ. . . . The As-
sembly consider it worthy of particular attention that most of the accounts of
revivals communicated to them stated that the institution of praying societies,
or special seasons of prayer to God for the outpouring of the Spirit, preceded
the remarkable displays of divine grace with which our land has been blessed.
In most cases, preparatory to signal effusions of the Holy Spirit the pious
have been stirred up to cry fervently and importunately that God would
appear to vindicate his own cause. The Assembly see in this a confirmation
of the Word of God, and an ample encouragement of the prayers and hopes
of the pious for future and more extensive manifestations of the divine power.
And they trust that the churches under their care, while they see cause of
abundant thankfulness for this dispensation, will also perceive that it presents
new motives to zeal and fervor in application to that throne of grace from
which every good and perfect gift cometh. The Assembly also observe with
great pleasure that the desire for spreading the gospel among the blacks and
among the savage tribes on our borders has been rapidly increasing during
the last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with the more
satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing presage of the spread of the
gospel, but also furnishes agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the
benign tendency of that spirit which God has been pleased to pour out upon
his people. On the whole, the Assembly cannot but declare with joy, and
with most cordial congratulations to the churches under their care, that the
state and prospects of vital religion in our country are more favorable and
encouraging than at any period within the last forty years. 1
But, notwithstanding these, and all such good words by
individual ministers and official bodies, the revival preach-
1 See McDonnold's " History," p. 21.
264 ^^^ CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
ers in the Cumberland country were interdicted by a com-
mission of Kentucky Synod. There were some things, of
course, that were not as orderly as they might have been
under less urgent circumstances ; and the Kentucky re-
vival was charged with running into Shakerism — although
but one of the revival party ever joined the Shakers, and
although the wealthiest and most influential acquisition
which they made in that day and in that community was
an anti- revival Presbyterian! '* Is it not marvelous," to
use the words of one of the leading Presbyterian ministers
of those days, " is it not marvelous that good men can be
so deluded by the wiles of the great Adversary as to be-
come evidently eager to impute all the wrong things that
may appear in that community for ten or twenty years
afterward to the influence of the revival ? With as much
propriety you might charge the apostasy of Judas to the
ministry of Jesus Christ."^
But the letter of the Standards must be adhered to,
rather than the substance and the spirit ; and so the mouths
of the revivalists must be stopped — because the exigencies
of the time and the country demanded that they should
break the bread of life to the perishing without waiting
to make a poor translation of some sentences from Caesar ;
because they could not believe that God created some
men and angels for no other reason than to glorify himself
by damning them to eternal torment! The Rev. David
Rice, a member of the Kentucky Synod, said in 1808,
when the revival, so far as the Presbyterian Church was
concerned, was no more :
That we had a revival of the spirit and power of Christianity among us, I
did, do, and ever shall believe ; . . . but we sadly mismanaged it ; we have
dashed it down and broken it to pieces. . . . We have not acted as wise
master-builders who have no need to be ashamed. 2
1 Rev. David Nelson, quoted in the " Western Sketch-book."
2 Bishop's " Memoir of Rice."
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN COUNCIL. 265
Fifty years later the Rev. James Gallagher, a Presbyte-
rian minister in East Tennessee, wrote a history of the re-
vival of 1 800. Writing of the suspended ministers, he says :
Certain it is that no men more regretted any departure from sound doctrines
than did these good men whose labors were so abundantly blessed in that
dispensation of the Holy Spirit by which the West, in its infancy, was con-
secrated to the service of God. Nor do I believe that now, after fifty years,
there is in any part of the several evangelical denominations more of that
religion which God approves than in the region visited by the revival of 1800.
And, speaking of the Cumberland Presbyterians :
This body of Christian people began their organized existence during that
great divine visitation. There are among them many strong men ; workmen
that need not be ashamed. And their blessed Master has been with them in
every part of that wide field where they have labored, and has made his
gospel the power of God unto salvation to many thousand believing souls.
From my inmost soul I honor these men, and will speak of it in the presence
of the church of my God. ... I have no hesitation in declaring my belief
that during the last forty years no body of ministers in America or in the
world have preached so much good efficient preaching, and received such
small compensation. That church now stands before heaven and earth a
monument of God's great work in the revival of 1800.
When the old Cumberland Presbytery was dissolved by
the Synod, the revivalists, members of that Presbytery,
organized themselves into a Council. This was done in
order to secure concurrence and uniformity of action on
their part. Various efforts were made by them to secure
reconciliation, but without avail. Finally the Council ap-
pealed to the Transylvania Presbytery to act as a sort of
mediator. But that Presbytery decided that no mitigation
of the usual construction concerning *' fatality " would be
permitted in adopting the Confession of Faith.
In a formal letter which it sent as its ultimatum the Presbytery said:
** With relation to those young men licensed and ordained by the aforesaid
Presbytery (Cumberland), we do humbly conceive that a formal examination
of them respecting doctrine and discipline is indispensable. An unequivocal
adoption of the Confession of Faith is also indispensable. » . . For them to
adopt the Confession of Faith only in part, and we the whole, would by no
266 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chak II.
means, in our opinion, effect a union according to truth and reality; and
whatever inference may be drawn by others respecting what is called fatality
from our views as expressed in the Confession of Faith, respecting divine
sovereignty and the decrees of predestination and election, we conceive that
no such conclusion can follow from the premises as there laid down." i
The members of the Council, wilHng neither to accept
doctrines which seemed to them tQ be false nor to be shut
out of their rights and privileges as Presbyterian minis-
ters, prayed for redress to the General Assembly of 1809.
This Assembly also had before it the minutes of the Ken-
tucky Synod in regard to the whole matter, and also a
letter from that body explaining its proceedings. The
Rev. John Lyle, the old enemy of the revival, was their
bearer and defender. Alas for the harm that one per-
sistent man (or one persistent committee) can do his
church ! Lyle had in a high degree the dangerous *' gift
of tears." His weeping and impassioned appeal completely
turned the tide against the Council and the revivalists.
'* The Assembly," says Dr. Davidson, ** voted unanimously
for sustaining all the actions of the Synod, and added a
vote of thanks to the Synod for its fidelity ; and this not-
withstanding the fact that Kentucky Synod explained that
the action of the commission against the ministers of what
had been Cumberland Presbytery was not meant to be
construed as suspension in the technical sense ; and this
notwithstanding the fact that the General Assembly itself
had formerly sent a committee to Kentucky Synod to
remonstrate with that body about the proceedings of its
commission; and this notwithstanding the fact that the
better opinion in the Assembly was then, and had all along
been, that the work of the commission of Kentucky Synod
* was without constitutional authority and wholly void ' ;
and notwithstanding the fact that a * semi-official letter ' of
1 Hays's " Presbyterians."
THE COUNCIL CONDEMNED. 267
the Assembly, prepared by the Rev. J. P. Wilson, of Phil-
adelphia, had been sent to the Council, in which he said :
* We are glad to hear of the prudence, diligence, and suc-
cess of the men you [the Cumberland Presbytery] admitted.
If they hold to the form of sound words, and are stead-
fast in the faith, they will be as much beloved by most of
us as though they had studied long and graduated.' "
But the deed was done, and, although no formal charges
had ever been brought against them, and no formal trial
ever held, the ministers of the revival "party" were
** adrift on life's ocean." The present is always doing
something which the future in its calmer hours bitterly
regrets.
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW PRESBYTERY.
The names of the members of the Council — the old
Cumberland Presbytery of Kentucky Synod — were James
McGready, William Hodge and his nephew, Samuel
Hodge, William McGee, Samuel McAdow, Finis Ewing,
and Samuel King.
McGready and the Hodges chose to resume their con-
nection with the Synod, on such terms as were agreeable
to them and to it. Samuel Hodge, however, was very
defective in literary attainments, and did not begin the
study of English grammar until several years after he was
thus received as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian
Church — from which it would seem that the authorities
vacillated in their view concerning the rigidity with which
the educational rule ought to be enforced. McGee, while
he could not accept the doctrine of predestination as taught
in the Westminster Confession, and held that ** the truth
lay betwixt Calvinism and Arminianism " — or, in other
words, that it was exclusively neither — was yet unwilling
to unite with the others in the organization of a Presbytery
until a new creed could be formulated. Things stood in
doubtful attitude from October, 1809, till February, 18 10,
on the third day of which month Finis Ewing and Samuel
King repaired to the house of Samuel McAdow and laid
before him the question of forming an independent Pres-
bytery. *' McAdow spent the whole night in prayer, and
in the morning, February 4th, with face aglow, announced
268
THE NEW PRESBYTERY. 269
his readiness to join in the organization." And thus it
was that the new Cumberland Presbytery was constituted
' — and the '* Cumberland Presbyterian Church" was born —
in just such an ** old log-house " as many a great thing,
before and since, has been born in. Just as men are, so
are churches, mightier than their birthplaces.
After the organization of the new Presbytery, a judi-
cature of the mother church proceeded to silence or depose
these three preachers — a proceeding which was of course
harmless. As the new Presbytery grew, circulars and
other publications were sent out warning the people that
the new church had no right to administer ordinances.
This provoked a smile from some, and drew forth from
others a sharp reply. The reply held up in contrast the
ordination of the first Presbyterians by Roman bishops
with the ordination of Ewing, King, and McAdow by a
regular Presbytery. It pointed to the fact that a large
majority of the Westminster Assembly divines received
their ordination from a single bishop. It called attention
to the fact that neither Viret nor Farel, for example, had
ever been authorized to ordain, but only to preach, when
they proceeded, as they probably did, solemnly to lay
ordaining hands upon Calvin. The efforts to break down
the young church by this mode of attack utterly failed,
and were soon abandoned. Ewing, King, and McAdow
were regularly ordained ministers, as everybody knew;
and everybody also knew that they had never been under
any formal charges. And after all, it was as well known
then as it is now that *' if the validity of the Christian
ministry depended on an unbroken succession of diocesan
bishops, which again depends on historical proof, it would
be difficult to defend " even the great Reformation of the
sixeenth century. So, notwithstanding the regularity of
their ordination, these Cumberland Presbyterian ministers,
270 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
as did the old Reformers, " planted themselves on the
promise of Christ, the ever-present Head of the church,"
and recognized as their best authority the special internal
divine call and preparation. And they proved their min-
istry by the abundance of their labors.
The first meeting of the new Presbytery had no churches
represented. The second, which was held in October,
1810, had only one; at this meeting the fourth minister
from the Presbyterian Church, the Rev. William McGee,
joined the Presbytery. It now numbered five, the Rev.
Ephraim McLean, a licentiate of the old Cumberland
Presbytery, having been ordained at the first meeting.
Nor were any churches represented at the third meet-
ing ; the fourth had six ; the fifth, eight, several of which
had been organized by the new Cumberland Presbytery.
After a little while some more of the churches which had
been with the revival ministers of the old Cumberland cast
in their lots with the new, but never enough of them to
amount to a schism. " The membership of the Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church to-day is, ninety percent, of it,
made up of converts won from Satan's dominion, and not
of proselytes won from other churches."
In the beginning it was an exceedingly small church ; a
but
tiny pine-shrub shot up from the moss,
The wren's foot would cover it tripping across,
The seasons fly past and its head is on high,
And its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky.
It was warmed by God's sunshine and fanned by his
breath, for how else could the little one have become a
thousand ?
All the ministers of the new Presbytery had a thorough
Presbyterian training, and Cumberland Presbyterians still
STRICT SABBATH OBSERVANCE. 2*Jl
regard it as worthy of record that in profound respect
for the Sabbath they were scarcely behind the Puritans
themselves. The customs of their families in this respect
were regulated strictly by the Jewish law. No wood was
gathered or carried, much less cut, on the Sabbath. No
visiting, no pleasure- riding, no cooking, no strolling through
the woods, no whistling, no traveling, except to church, no
conversation or reading, except on religious subjects, was
tolerated. If a child committed an offense worthy of the
rod, the penalty was delayed till Monday morning.^
1 McDonnold's "History."
CHAPTER IV.
A CIRCULAR LETTER.
The new Cumberland Presbytery, at its fall session in
1810, gives an account of those times, and particularly of
the circumstances which led to its formation. As it admits
us into the very pith and marrow of those formative days,
and will always be a document of permanent value, it is
thought desirable to insert it here in full — especially as it
is presumed to be one of the objects of the society under
whose auspices this sketch is published to preserve valu-
able, original, historical documents.
Addressed to the Societies and Brethren of the Presbyterian Church recently
under the care of the Council by the late Cumberland Presbytery, in which
there is a correct statement of the origin, progress, and termination of
the difference between the Synod of Kentucky and the former Presbytery
of Cumberland. Russellville, Ky. Printed by Matthew Duncan, at the
office of the " Farmer's Friend," 1810.
Dear Brethren : The time is at last come when we must either sacrifice
our religious liberties and conscience to what we judge unreasonable demands,
cease our endeavors to promote the work of God among you as we have
hitherto done, or constitute a Presbytery separate from the Synod of Ken-
tucky. We choose the latter as the only alternative in which we can have
the answer of a good conscience. We therefore deem it expedient to give
you a retrospective view of the cause, together with the progressive means
by which matters have been brought to this issue.
A number of you will easily recollect that about the close of the last cent-
ury, or beginning of the present, God in a very remarkable manner began
to revive his work amongst the inhabitants of this western country, the first
symptoms of which appeared under the ministerial labors of the Rev, James
McGready in Logan County. At the first commencement of this glorious
revival, as also in its progress, the bodily affections and exercises of a num-
ber of those who were its subjects were very uncommon. This soon caused
272
PROPOSITION OF PEV. DAVID PICE. 273
a rumor to go abroad, and the people from every quarter came out to see.
The consequence of which was, they not only had their curiosity satisfied,
but a great number had their hearts deeply affected. This, in the hand of
God, was a blessed means of spreading the work through various parts of
our country. For a while, at first, all the ministers in our bounds seemed
to participate in the glorious effusion of the Holy Spirit, and, correspondent
to this, proclaimed themselves friends to the revival. But alas ! it was soon
after discoverable that some of them had changed their opinion, otherwise
they had never been well established. The consequence of this apparent
change may easily be inferred; notwithstanding, the work still progressed.
And although the few who remained friends to the revival labored in the
work of the ministry night and day, yet the cries of the people for more
preaching were incessant ; and those cries soon became so general that they
were heard from many parts of an extensive frontier. The ministers in re-
turn could only pity and pray for them ; the congregations being so numer-
ous, and in such a scattered situation, that they could not by any possible
endeavor supply them.
About this time a venerable father in the ministry,! who was then resident
in one of the upper counties of Kentucky, came down and attended a com-
munion with some of our preachers in a vacant congregation ; and he having
learned the situation of our country, and the pressing demand that there was
for more preaching, proposed the plan of encouraging such amongst us as
appeared to be men of good talents, and who also discovered a disposition
to exercise their gifts in a public way, to preach the gospel, although they
might not have acquired that degree of human education which the letter of
discipline requires. This proposition was truly pleasing to our preachers,
and, indeed, it found general acceptance amongst the people as soon as inti-
mations thereof were given. The consequence was, an uncommon spirit of
prayer now seemed to prevail throughout the societies, that the great Head
of the church would not only open an effectual door into the ministry, but
also that he would raise up, qualify, and bring men into that sacred office,
whose labors he would own and bless. And, brethren, that God who never
told Israel to seek him in vain evidently heard and answered the prayers of
his people. Some, whose minds had been previously impressed with the
duty of calling sinners to repentance, and of bearing public testimony to the
work of God and the religion of Jesus Christ, and upon whom also the eyes
of the church for some time had been fixed with a degree of expectation, now
made their exercise of mind on this subject known to their fathers in the
ministry. The prospect was truly pleasing to the preachers, yet they con-
sidered it expedient to act with the greatest caution ; for although the step
about to be taken was not unprecedented in the Presbyterian Church, yet,
seeing it was out of the common track, they were well aware that some of
tkeir brethren in the ministry would oppose the measure. However, they
1 Rev. David Rice.
2 74 ^-^^ CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
ventured to encourage three or four of the young men to prepare written dis-
courses, and present them to the Transylvania Presbytery as a specimen of
their abilities. They accordingly prepared discourses, and at the next stated
session of said Presbytery their case was brought before that reverend body.
They met with warm opposition, arising principally, however, from a quarter
rather inimical to the revival. But after a lengthy conversation on the sub-
ject, in which there was much altercation, a majority of the members con-
sented and agreed that the young men might be permitted to read their dis-
courses to an aged member alone, who should make report to the judicature.
We believe the report was favorable. It was then directed, as well as we can
recollect, that those men should prepare other discourses to be read at the
next Presbytery. They accordingly prepared, and three of them attended;
but as soon as the subject of their case was resumed, a warm debate ensued.
At length, however, a majority of the members agreed to hear their dis-
courses. After they were read the question was put: "Shall these men be
received as candidates for the ministry ? " The vote being taken, one of the
three was received, and two rejected by a majority of one vote only. This
circumstance much depressed the spirits of a number of the preachers who
were real friends to the revival, and likewise the congregations generally,
who had so earnestly desired their licensure ; but more especially the spirits
of those two candidates were depressed. They were men in a matrimonial
state, and could not, consistently with those relative duties by which they
were bound to their families, go and acquire the knowledge of all those forms
of literature required by the Book of Discipline. Fain would they have re-
turned home and solaced themselves in the enjoyment of their domestic com-
forts as private Christians, if they could have done so and kept a good con-
science ; but this they could not do ; nor could they with clearness become
members of any other Christian society where the ministerial door was not
so strait and difficult, and consequently where they might have been at liberty
to exercise their popular talents with approbation. No ; they were attached
to all the essential doctrines and likewise the Discipline of the Presbyterian
Church. It was in this church they were early dedicated to God by their
parents, and in this church they first felt the power of the gospel upon their
hearts, and tasted the sweetness of that grace which brings salvation to man.
Therefore, in the communion of this church they earnestly desired to live
and die.
By this time a number of others, who were generally esteemed eminent for
gifts and piety, together with those who had already offered as candidates,
became all solemnly impressed to proclaim the word of life and salvation to
sinners. But alas ! the door of admittance seemed to be shut against them.
In this dark state of matters, both the ministers themselves, and likewise
the candidates who had already offered, and others who were looking forward
toward the ministry, together with all the societies in our bounds, began now,
in good earnest, to realize the necessity of crying mightily to that God who has
church judicatures in his hands as well as the hearts of individuals. In the
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERY FORMED. 275
meantime, candidates and other eminent characters who were assiduously en-
deavoring in one way or another to promote the work of God were encour-
aged by their fathers in the ministry to continue the exercise of their gifts in
a way of pubhc exhortation, which several of them did, laboring much till the
next Presbytery ; at which time several petitions were presented with hun-
dreds of signatures, praying the Presbytery to license and send to their relief
certain denominated persons. The subject was again taken into considera-
tion, after which the Presbytery, who were personally acquainted with those
men embraced in the petitions, knowing their piety, soundness in the faith,
aptness to teach, etc., and taking into view the situation of the congregations
and the extraordinary demand for preaching, determined to hear trial ser-
mons from three or four of them (at the present session), to be considered
as popular discourses : which accordingly were delivered and sustained by a
large majority of the judicature. And after an examination on various sub-
jects touching the ministry, which was also sustained, they were "licensed
to preach the gospel within the bounds of the Transylvania Presbytery, or
wherever else God in his providence might call them."
Certain members who had always been opposed to the measure entered
their protest against the proceedings of the majority. But the majority were
not deterred thereby from pursuing in their ofhcial capacity that method
which they conscientiously believed best calculated to promote the Redeemer's
kingdom in the world.
The Synod not long after this divided the Transylvania Presbytery, and
formed what was called the Cumberland Presbytery; the bounds of which
included all the members that attended the preceding session of the Transyl-
vania Presbytery. Which act gave a decided majority in the new Presbytery
to the promoters of the revival and those who were friendly to the licensure
of the aforementioned young men : which majority ever after continued, and
increased until the Presbytery were dissolved.
The licensing of these men on the petition of the congregations seemed to
be a means in God's hand of increasing, instead of decreasing, the demand
for supplies. They, the preachers, laboring both night and day, leaving their
families for considerable lengths of time, preaching the Word, planting new
societies, and watering those that were planted, would necessarily increase
such demand, if attended with the divine influence. And, brethren, we need
only appeal to many of you to witness the success that evidently attended
those men's labors. The feeling and experience of your own hearts are
better evidences to you on that subject than all the reasons that could be
advanced. Though yoii may have ten thousand instructors, yet you have not
many fathers in Christ.
The Presbytery, in pursuing what they believed to be their duty, continued
from time to time to license and ordain such men, both learned and unlearned
(what is meant by unlearned here, is not a want of common English educa-
tion), as they thought would be useful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.
And if the old maxim be a good one, "Judge of causes by their effects," the
2*]^ THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
Presbytery will never have just cause to regret that they engaged in and pur-
sued such measures ; for it is an incontestable fact (judging by our Lord's
rule, ^^ By their fruit ye shall know them ") that there are multitudes of both
jnen and women who will have cause to rejoice eternally that ever they heard
those men preach a crucified Christ.
The members who entered their protest sent a petition to the next session
of Synod, referring them to the protest, " which they thought should have
operated as an appeal," in which they complained of various irregularities in
the Cumberland Presbytery with respect to the licensure and ordination of
men to the ministry. The Synod at that time did or said but little about
the matter ; but at their succeeding session they appointed a commission of
Synod to meet shortly afterward in the bounds of the Cumberland Presby-
tery at Gasper River, and directed certain members of the commission to cite,
previously to that meeting, all our preachers, licentiates, candidates, and pub-
lic exhorters,! who generally met in obedience to the citation.
We would observe here, brethren, that although the appointment of the
commission was (we hope) well intended, yet we believe it was unhappily
selected, as to a part of it, from what appeared in the prosecution of their
mission. A number of that body, however, both preachers and elders, were
meek and friendly disposed men, who felt themselves, as brethren, disposed
to pursue the most pacific measures (according to their order from the stated
Synod) to heal the breach that threatened the church. But, on the contrary,
it is notorious that another part of that body were men of different tempers ;
and it was an unfortunate circumstance that those men were the most forward
influential members.
After the commission had met, and also the accused (who were then known
as the majority of the Cumberland Presbytery), the commission selected from
the minutes and other sources a number of irregularities, as chargeable against
the majority of the Presbytery. All of which, however, were comprised in
the two following particulars, to wit: first, "the licensing unlearned men, or
such as had not been examined on the learned languages, etc. ; secondly,
that those men who were licensed, both learned and unlearned, were only
required to adopt the Confession of Faith partially — that is, as far as they
believed it to agree with the Word of God."
As to the first ground of complaint, the Presbytery not only pleaded the
exception made in the Discipline in extraordinary cases, but also the exam-
ple of a number of the presbyteries in different parts of the United States. 2
1 There was much noise about so many exhorters having been authorized
by the Presbytery. The members thought with the Apostle that it was the
duty and privilege of all Christians to exhort in some manner ; and the de-
sign they had in licensing such as made application was to give them more
weight among the people, without the most distant prospect of licensing them
to preach except those whose talents would have justified such an act.
2 Among the many instances of this kind that might be mentioned are the
following, to wit : Mr. Beck, who was received by the Presbytery in North
STRIFE BETWEEN PRESBYTERY AND SYNOD. 277
They moreover appealed to a higher authority than either of the foregoing,
which was, the New Testament, and inquired if there was any precept or ex-
ample in that which condemned the practice of licensing what they (the com-
mission) called unlearned men to preach the gospel? It was likewise asked
if God could not as easily call a Presbyterian to preach who had not a liberal
education, as he could a Methodist or Baptist? a number of whom are ac-
knowledged to be respectable and useful ministers of Jesus Christ.
As to the second point, the Synod had suggested that the candidates could
have adopted the "Alcoran " in the same manner they adopted the Confession
of Faith. This was acknowledged to be literally true, but not applicable in
the case of the young men. For the Presbytery contended that the very act
of the candidates receiving the Confession at all was an evidence that they
esteemed it above all human creeds. And the exception, or condition in
which they were indulged, was only designed to meet some conscientious
scruples in points not fundamental nor essential — particularly the idea of
fatality, that seemed to some of them to be there taught under the high and
mysterious doctrine of predestination.
The reasons offered by the Presbytery on those points did not appear satis-
factory to the commission of Synod : therefore, much altercation took place,
during which time no doubt but Christ was wounded in the house of his friends
by some (perhaps) of both judicatures. It is well recollected, at any rate,
that the Presbytery, during the debate, were often reminded by certain mem-
bers of the commission that they stood at their (the commissioners') bar!
Indeed, brethren, it appeared to us very notorious that some of the leading
members of that body assumed attitudes and an authority which but illy corn-
Carolina ; Mr. Bloodworth, by Orange ; Mr. Moore, by Hanover ; Mr. Marquis,
by Redstone ; and Mr. Kemper and Mr. Abell, by the Transylvania Presby-
teries. Likewise, in Pennsylvania, many years ago, a poor illiterate man, a
native of Wales, conceiving that he had an internal call to preach the gospel,
made his case known to the Presbytery. But because he was not sufficiently
acquainted with the English language to undergo an examination in it, or in
any other but his mother-tongue, the Presbytery, therefore, instead of treat-
ing him without notice, sent to Virginia for President Davis, who was also a
native of Wales, to perform the necessary examination previous to licensure,
and who on his return to Virginia declared that he never had assisted in
bringing a man into the ministry with greater freedom in his life.
In short, the majority of Cumberland Presbytery were of opinion that the
compilers of the Confession of Faith and Discipline of our church never in-
tended the rules there laid down for examination and trial of candidates for
the ministry to be considered an infallible standard by which the Holy Ghost
must be limited when he calls men to that sacred office. They had no doubt
but that reverend body, at the same time that they laid down those pruden-
tial rules, believed that the great Head of the church could, and actually did,
when he thought proper, bring men into the ministry without the aid of those
literary qualifications. And if granted that he might in one instance, why
not in more — yea, why not in many? Who will limit the Holy One of Israel?
278 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
ported with the character of ministers of the meek and lowly Jesus, sent on
a pacific mission.
After much reasoning as well as positive assertion on the subject, the com-
mission demanded of the Presbytery to give up to them all those men whom
they had licensed and ordained for reexamination. The Presbytery refused,
suggesting the danger of the example, and also that such a demand was with-
out precedent. They moreover declared that they believed the Discipline of
the Presbyterian Church had deposited the sole power in the several presby-
teries to judge of the faith and qualifications of their own candidates for the
ministry.!
After the refusal of the Presbytery, the moderator of the commission pro-
ceeded to adjure the young men to submit to their authority and be reexam-
ined ; when one of them asked liberty for himself and brethren to retire and
ask counsel of God before they would give an answer. This reasonable re-
quest was at first strongly opposed by one or two leading members of the
commission, but at length it was granted, and the young men retired to ask
counsel of Him who is all-wise. In a short time after, they returned, when
they were asked individually if they would submit as above. They all (ex-
cept one or two who wanted longer time to deliberate) answered in the nega-
tive, for the following reasons, to wit : first, they believed the Cumberland
Presbytery, which was a regular church judicature, to be competent judges
of the faith and abilities of their own candidates ; secondly, that they them-
selves had not been charged with heresy or immorality ; and if they had, the
Presbytery would have been the proper judicature first to have called them
to an account. Notwithstanding, the commission of Synod proceeded form-
ally to prohibit all the men, learned and unlearned, whom the Cumberland
Presbytery had licensed and ordained from preaching the gospel in the name
of Presbyterians ! And also cited what were called the Old Members to attend
the next stated session of Synod to be examined on faith, and to answer for
not having given up their young brethren to be reexamined.
Here, brethren, we would ask (knowing that a number of you have been
thirty or forty years regular members of the Presbyterian Church) if ever you
knew an instance, either in Europe or America, of a Synod undertaking to
prohibit preachers who had not been accused by their own or any other Pres-
bytery? We would also ask, if ever you knew an instance of any Reformed
Church judicature silencing a minister or ministers who had not been charged
with heresy, immorality, nor even what our Discipline calls contumacy? This
was certainly the case with the young men. That is, they were not charged
with either of the above, yet they were prohibited, and the Presbytery cen-
sured, because they would not acknowledge the authority by which it was done.
1 On the principles of the commission's demand, no Presbytery would
know when there was an addition made to their body by a new ordination,
inasmuch as the next Synod might demand a reexamination of the newly
ordained minister, judge him unqualified, and declare he should no longer
preach as a Presbyterian.
STRIFE CONTINUED. 2'jg
The members of Presbytery then retired to consult what was best to be
done (but not in a presbyterial capacity), and after deliberation they agreed
to encourage the young men to continue the exercise of their respective func-
tions, which they themselves determined to do : except in such business as
required the act of a Presbytery.
Some months after, there was a general meeting or council held at Shiloh,
consisting of the ministers, elders, and representatives from vacancies which
formerly composed a majority of Cumberland Presbytery. At that council it
was agreed on to petition the General Assembly, and in the meantime cease
our operations as a Presbytery, but continue to meet from time to time in the
capacity of a council, and promote the interest of the church as well as we
could, until an answer could be obtained from the Assembly. The council,
at this meeting, unanimously declared it to be their opinion that the commis-
sion of Synod had acted contrary to Discipline, which opinion was corrobo-
rated by the next Assembly (though not officially), according to a private let-
ter from a respectable member of that body, a part of which is as follows :
" The unhappy differences in your quarter, so immediately succeeding what
a great proportion of the Presbyterian interest, in this place, believed to be
a great revival of the work of God, has excited deep concern, and our Gen-
eral Assembly have had the matter fully before them. It appeared to be the
decided opinion of the majority in the General Assembly that no Synod has
a right to proceed against ministers or individuals except the matter shall
have come before them by appeal from the Presbytery ; that only a Pres-
bytery could call its members to account for errors in doctrine or practice ;
that a man once ordained by a Presbytery is an ordained minister, though
the Presbytery may have acted improperly in not requiring the due qualifica-
tions, and that even a Presbytery could not afterward depose, but for cause
arising or made public after ordination ; that licentiates are always in the
power of their Presbytery to examine them and to withdraw their licensure
at discretion ; but that a Synod may act against a Presbytery, as such, by
dissolving, dividing, censuring, etc. : consequently, that the dealings with
Cumberland Presbytery were legal in dissolving them and annexing them
to Transylvania, but wholly improper in suspending ordained ministers, and
still more improper was it for a commission of Synod to do it. But though
the rule about knowledge of languages in our Discipline is not often fully
complied with, and though the rule is not found in the Scriptures, yet it is
so important, that though your case was an imperious one, yet they seemed
to fear you had gone too far, especially in the licensures. But what the
General Assembly hath finally done will appear very inconclusive on these
points, because they wished to avoid offending the Synod and the Presbytery ;
and the minority in the Assembly took advantage of this to make the business
end as much as possible in such a manner as not to be construed against the
power of Synods and General Assemblies. The General Assembly have,
however, questioned the regularity of the proceedings of your Synod."
You may see, brethren, in the foregoing extract, what was the decided
28o THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
opinion of what may be called the collected wisdom of the Presbyterian
Church of the United States on the points for which we contended ; and per-
haps, in examining the list of commissioners who composed the Assembly,
the members will be found to stand as high for learning, integrity, and piety
as a subsequent Assembly, who differed with them in opinion. You will,
moreover, see the reason why we were not profited by the favorable opinion
of the Assembly. As to the Assembly's fearing we had " gone too far in the
licensures," we will not pretend to say their fears were altogether without
foundation. Nevertheless, the Presbytery who have been without sin on
this subject " may cast the first stone" — that is, the Presbytery who have
licensed as many as the Cumberland Presbytery have done, and who have
licensed no improper person to preach the gospel, i
The Assembly addressed a letter to the Synod informing them that what
they had done " was at least of questionable regularity," and requested them
to review their proceedings, and rectify what might have been done amiss.
The Synod, we understood, reviewed, but confirmed all their commission had
done. The council, notwithstanding, were encouraged to forward another
petition. After which we were informed, by a private letter from another
influential member of the Assembly, that it would be most proper for us to
apply to the Synod to rescind their former order as it respected the Presby-
tery, and if they refused, then for the council to appeal to the Assembly, who,
" no doubt, would redress their grievances." The official letter of that As-
sembly not having come to hand, the council thought it prudent to postpone
doing anything in it until such letter could be seen. After it was seen a
number of the members of council thought the prospect of a redress of griev-
ances not flattering, and at the next council it was voted by a large majority
to go into a constituted state, and in that capacity address the General As-
sembly. But by reason of the minority refusing to acquiesce in what the
majority had done, the council did not still constitute a Presbytery. After
some time, some of those who were of the majority felt willing to comply
with the recommendation of the member who wrote to us and told us to go
up by appeal from the Synod. But before there was an opportunity of doing
so (after such conclusion), we heard, to our astonishment, that the Assembly
had decided in favor of the Synod. This step at once superseded the neces-
sity of an appeal ; therefore the council generally thought it was now time to
constitute into a Presbytery, and proceed to business again in that capacity.
But some of the members wished to make the last effort with the Synod, who
now had the business in their own hands, and the whole agreed, at the Ridge
Meeting-house in August last, to propose their last terms and forward them
to the Transylvania Presbytery or Synod by two commissioners to be ap-
pointed for that purpose, which was accordingly done, and the terms in sub-
stance were as follows :
1 The Cumberland Presbytery have reason to thank God that every man
whom they licensed (except one individual) continues to believe, preach, and
practice the gospel of Christ.
DESIRE FOR PEACE. 28 1
" We, the preachers belonging to the council, both old and young, from
a sincere desire to be in union with the general body of the Presbyterian
Church, are willing to be examined on the tenets of our holy religion by the
Transylvania Presbytery, Synod, or a committee appointed for that purpose ; .
taking along the idea, however, that we be received or rejected as a connected
body. Also all our ministers, ordained and licentiates, retain their former
authority derived from the Cumberland Presbytery. It was moreover under-
stood, that if the Synod should require the preachers to re-adopt the Confes-
sion of Faith, it should be with the exception of fatality only."
Our commissioners were directed to go, and take a copy of the above min-
ute, without any discretionary power whatsoever to alter the propositions in
any way. And it was unanimously agreed and determined, that if the Synod
would not accede to the propositions, on the fourth Tuesday in October
ensuing they (the whole council) would go into a constituted state. The
commissioners accordingly went to the Synod, and after their return informed
us that the Synod would not consider our case as a body, but as individuals ;
neither would they suffer any of our preachers to make the exception to the
Confession of Faith.
The commissioners, notwithstanding, obtained an order for an intermediate
Presbytery "to be held at Greentown, to consider the case of Mr. Hodge
and others." Here, brethren, we will insert for your information the minute
of the last council, and also the preamble to the minute of our first Presbytery :
" The council met at Shiloh, agreeably to adjournment on the fourth Tues-
day in October, 1809. Whereupon Mr. King was appointed to the chair,
and Thomas Donald, clerk. The council opened by prayer.
" Inquiry was made what progress the commissioners had made at the
Transylvania Presbytery (or Synod) toward bringing about a reconciliation,
and how those judicatures had treated the propositions of the last council.
Mr. Hodge, after some preliminary remarks (in which he suggested that he
thought the commissioners had obtained a compliance with the substance of
the council's propositions), read a copy of a petition he had presented to the
Synod, and the Synod's order on that petition. After the matter was dis-
cussed, and after the minute of the last council on that subject was read and
compared with the petition and order above, the vote was taken whether or
not the Synod had complied with the propositions of the council — which was
decided in the negative by a very large majority. The vote was then taken
whether or not the council would put the resolution of last council into exe-
cution (which went solemnly to declare that unless the Synod acceded to their
propositions they would on this day constitute into a Presbytery), which was
carried in the affirmative by a large majority. After which Messrs. William
and Samuel Hodge, ministers, and Thomas Donald, elder, withdrew from
the council, virtually declaring their intention to join the Transylvania Pres-
bytery. There being then only three ordained ministers present, it was in-
quired whether they were now ready to go into a constituted state — when it
was found that one of them was embarrassed in his mind. The council then
282 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
adjourned and met again, waiting the decision of that member, who at length
declared he could not feel free at the present time to constitute. The council
then, together with all the licentiates and candidates present, formed into a
committee and entered upon a free conversation on the subject before them.
" When it was finally agreed to that each ordained minister, licentiate,
elder, and representative shall continue in union, and use their influence to
keep the societies in union, until the third Tuesday in March next, and then
meet at the Ridge Meeting-house.
"After which each one shall be at liberty from this bond, unless, previ-
ously to that time, three ordained ministers belonging to this body should
have constituted a Presbytery. Then in that case the committee will all con-
sider the bond of union perpetual. Which Presbytery, after doing such busi-
ness as they may think proper, are to adjourn to meet at the Ridge Meeting-
house the said third Tuesday in March in a presbyterial capacity.
" Samuel King, Chairman.
" In Dixon County, Tennessee State, at the Rev. Samuel McAdow's this
fourth day of February, 1810.
" We, Samuel McAdow, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King, regularly or-
dained ministers in the Presbyterian Church, against whom no charge, either
of immorality or heresy, has ever been exhibited before any of the church
judicatures, having waited in vain more than four years, in the meantime
petitioning the General Assembly for a redress of grievances and a restora-
tion of our violated rights, have and do hereby agree and determine to con-
stitute into a Presbytery, known by the name of the Cumberland Presbytery,
on the following conditions, to wit : all candidates for the ministry who may
hereafter be licensed by this Presbytery, and all the licentiates or probationers
who may hereafter be ordained by this Presbytery, shall be required, before
such licensure and ordination, to receive and adopt the Confession and Dis-
cipline of the Presbyterian Church, except the idea of fatality, that seems to
be taught under the mysterious doctrine of predestination. It is to be under-
stood, however, that such as can clearly receive the Confession without an
exception shall not be required to make any. Moreover, all licentiates, be-
fore they are set apart to the whole work of the ministry (or ordained), shall
be required to undergo an examination on English grammar, geography,
astronomy, natural and moral philosophy, and church history. 1 The Presby-
tery may also require an examination on all or any part of the above branches
of literature, before licensure, if they deem it expedient."
Thus, brethren, we have, in the integrity of our hearts, endeavored to give
you as correct and impartial an account of the rise and progress of the cause
or causes that have brought us into our present situation, as justice to our-
1 It will not be understood that examinations on experimental religion and
theology will be omitted.
DEFENSE OF THE COUNCIL. 283
selves and our best recollection would admit. We have not intentionally
and unjustly exposed or covered the conduct of any man or judicature. We
have only aimed at giving a clear, honest view of the matter, that you might
be enabled to judge for yourselves whether we have acted with propriety or
impropriety. If we be in error, we are not conscious of it.
We think, brethren, precipitancy or rashness cannot be justly imputed to
us in the present case. We have waited in an unorganized state for more
than four years, and in that time have repeatedly prayed the judicatures to
redress our grievances, and have not contended for one privilege but what
we conscientiously believe God's Word allows us. If we had sought or de-
sired an occasion to make a schism in the church, we had an excellent pre-
text, after the unprecedented conduct of the commission of Synod toward us.
But instead of this, we voluntarily suspended our operations as a Presbytery,
and waited from year to year (being beset on every side), hoping the matter
might be settled on principles just and equitable. We said " beset on every
side " ; yes, brethren, a number of you know that various sectaries took the
advantage of our forbearance and peculiar situation, and endeavored to rend
our flourishing congregations. The swarms of heretics, and fanatics also,
who came down from the upper counties of Kentucky gave us much perplex-
ity. Yet we determined, through grace, to stand firm and continue to appeal
to the reason and justice of the higher judicatures until we were assured they
were not disposed to restore our rights. This assurance we have at length
obtained, and there was no alternative left us but either to violate our solemn
vows to our brethren — act contrary to our reason and conscience — or form
ourselves into a Presbytery separate from the Kentucky Synod. This step
at first view may alarm some of you, but be assured, brethren, that although
we are not now united to the Presbyterian Church by the external bond of
Discipline, we feel as much union in heart as formerly. And we would
further assure you that we have not set up as a party inimical to the general
Presbyterian Church. No : we ourselves are Presbyterians, and expect ever
to remain so, whether united to the general body or not.
Permit us further to inform you what we do know to be an incontestable
fact — that is, there are a number of ministers who are kept in the bosom of
the Presbyterian Church who have deviated infinitely more from the Confes-
sion than we have done. One can boldly deny the imputation of Christ's
active obedience to the sinner in justification and publish it to the world;
another can deny the operation of the Holy Spirit in the work of regenera-
tion ; 1 and yet we, who only object to the unqualified idea of eternal repro-
bation, cannot be indulged in that objection !
It has been said that if all the ministers belonging to the council had con-
tinued together and had constituted into a Presbytery, it would have been
much better. Brethren, if individuals, for reasons best known to themselves
1 See Mr. Davis's publication of South Carolina and Mr. Craighead's of
Tennessee.
284 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
and their God, have thought proper to change a position in which we thought
God had blessed them, we have not yet felt at liberty to do so likewise. We
have to account to God and our own conscience how we have acted in this
matter.
Some have feared because of the smallness of our number. Brethren, we
have yet left in the bounds of our Presbytery almost as many ministers, ex-
clusive of candidates, as our blessed Lord chose to spread the gospel through
the world. And whilst we acknowledge the greatest inferiority to those
twelve champions of the gospel, yet we profess to believe that neither the
standing nor reputation of a people depends on their numbers. If this were
admitted, the Roman Church when it was at its zenith of superstition and
idolatry would have been the most permanent and respectable in the world.
But the Reformation and subsequent events have taught us that was not the
case with her. But notwithstanding, some individuals have changed their
ground ; yet, as far as we have learned, but very few of the numerous and
respectable societies or congregations have abandoned us ; and many individ-
uals of those few were partly constrained to do as they have done from their
local situation.
Some of you are afraid you cannot be supplied by the Presbytery. Breth-
ren, the same almighty Lord of the haj-vest who heard your prayers on that
subject ten years ago is willing to hear again. Is the harz'est indeed g7-eat
and the laborers few ? Well, then, pray the Lord to send more laborers.
Some fear lest the Presbytery should take too much liberty in licensing and
ordaining unlearned men. If by this you mean you are afraid the Presbytery
(in some instances) will dispense with the dead languages, your fears are
well grounded. But if you are afraid we will license and ordain without a
good English education, we hope your fears are without foundation.! And
while we thus candidly declare our intention to receive men as candidates,
without a knowledge of languages, who are men of good talents, and who
appear to be evidently called of God (believing, as we do, that there are
thousands in the Presbyterian Church of such description, who would make
more able, respectable, and more useful ministers of Jesus Christ than many
who say they have been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel), we would never-
theless recommend it to all parents who have sons who promise fair for the
ministry, to have them taught the Greek language, especially the Greek Tes-
tament. Some of us, brethren, intend to do ourselves what we here recom-
mend, and thereby more fully convince you of our sincerity.
We would just add, that we have it in view as a Presbytery to continue, or
make another proposition to the Synod of Kentucky or some other Synod for
a reunion. If we can obtain it without violating our natural and Scriptural
rights, it will meet the most ardent wish of our hearts. If we cannot, we
hope to be enabled to commit ourselves and cause to Him who is able to
keep us. Brethren, if we live at the feet of the Redeemer and feel constant
1 See the preamble to the minute of our first Presbytery.
FRATERNIZING ADVISED. 285
dependence on him, we are not afraid but that he will be our God and Direc-
tor. And if God be for us, who can be against us ? We therefore entreat
you, brethren, to watch and be sober.
Cultivate friendship with all societies of Christians who maintain the
fundamental doctrines of the gospel, and whose lives comport with their pro-
fession. But avoid the multitude of deceivers who have gone out into the
world and strike at the very root of all real religion. Avoid them, we en-
treat you, as you would the open enemies of the cross of Christ.
Gird on the whole armor of God. Fight the good fight of faith, live in peace^
and the God of peace shall be with you. Amen.
Samuel McAdow, Moderator,
Test, Young Ewing, Clerk,
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST SYNOD.
The records of the first Presbytery, as compiled by the
Rev. Dr. J. B. Lindsley in his *' Sources and Sketches of
Cumberland Presbyterian History," clearly indicate that a
separate ecclesiastical denomination was not at first aimed
at. Cumberland Presbytery was meant to be only an in-
dependent Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, hopes
being reserved that some day and in some unforeseen
manner the breach would be healed. But the day has
delayed its coming, and the unforeseen manner has never
become apparent. Cumberland Presbytery, while hoping,
delayed not its growth, and the ministers and churches
under its jurisdiction multiplied. November 3, 18 12, it
met at a church called Lebanon, in Christian County, Ky.
It was resolved to form a Synod, and the preamble to the
resolution reads as follows :
Whereas, we, the Cumberland Presbytery, have made every reasonable
eflfort to be reunited to the general Presbyterian Church ; and Whereas,
from the extent of our bounds, the local situation of our members, their
number, etc., it is inconvenient to do business in but one Presbytery; and
Whereas the constitution of a Synod vi^ould be desirable, and we trust of
good consequences in various respects, and particularly as a tribunal having
appellate jurisdiction : therefore, etc.
Previous to this, in October, 181 1, Cumberland Presby-
tery appointed a committee to meet a delegation from
Muhlenburg and West Tennessee Presbyteries of the Pres-
byterian Church '' to confer on the subject of a reunion,
and other matters relative to that harmony that should
286
THE SYNOD ORGANIZED. 287
exist between the members and people of Jesus Christ."
But instead of a union being effected between the two
bodies, a pastoral letter was addressed to the churches
warning them of the heresies of those who had assumed
the Cumberland Presbytery, asserting that its members
had no authority to administer ordinances, etc. The
members of Cumberland Presbytery and the members of
its churches were excluded from participation in the sacra-
ment of the Lord's Supper when administered by Presby-
terian ministers. 1 This harsh measure called forth the
following on the part of Cumberland Presbytery :
Whereas, our brethren of Muhlenburg and West Tennessee Presbyteries,
instead of manifesting a spirit of reconciliation, have officially shut the door
against the two bodies coming together ;
Resolved, ist. That this Presbytery has, in substance, complied with our
declaration in the circular letter relating to a reunion. 2d. It is our opinion
that the Muhlenburg and West Tennessee Presbyteries by their late acts have
for the present cut off all prospect of a reunion between the two churches.
3d. That we have always been, and expect to continue to be, willing and
ready to have union on proper principles with the general Presbyterian
Church.
But hope was deferred. That it might work the more
efficiently while it waited, the Cumberland Presbytery
divided itself into three, and in October, 181 3, at the
Beech Church in Sumner County, Tenn., the first Synod
was organized. The name *' Cumberland " Presbytery was
changed to " Nashville," the other two Presbyteries being
the Elk and the Logan. The name " Cumberland " was
given to the Synod. The bounds of this Synod included
a large part of Middle Tennessee, extending indefinitely
northward through Kentucky. The first Presbytery was
organized with three ordained ministers ; the first Synod,
three years thereafter, with sixteen.
The most important work of the Synod at its first
1 Smith's " History."
288 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
meeting was the appointment of a committee to prepare
a Confession of Faith, Catechism, and Discipline, in con-
formity to the avowed principles of the body. It con-
sisted of Rev. Messrs. William McGee, Finis Ewing, Robert
Donnell, and Thomas Calhoun. The committee simply
modified the Westminster Confession and Catechism, ex-
punging what the members and those whom they repre-
sented believed to be unscriptural, and supplying, under
the topics treated, that which they thought in accordance
with the Word of God. The whole was presented to the
Synod of 1816, which approved it and adopted it as the
Confession of Faith and Discipline of the Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church.
The Cumberland Synod performed all the functions of
a General Synod from the date of its organization in 181 3
to its final adjournment in 1828. At this time there were
eighteen presbyteries, as follows: Nashville, Elk, and
Logan, 181 3; McGee, in Missouri and Illinois, 18 19;
Anderson, in Kentucky, 1821; Lebanon, in Tennessee,
1 821; Tennessee, including the southern portion of the
State, 1 821; Illinois, 1822; Tombigbee, in Alabama and
Mississippi, 1823; Arkansas, 1823; Hopewell, in Western
Tennessee, 1824; Alabama, 1824; Indiana, 1825; Bar-
nett, in Missouri, 1827; Knoxville, in Tennessee, 1827;
St. Louis, in Missouri, 1828; Princeton, in Kentucky,
1828; Sangamon, in Illinois, 1828.
The historians who have space to enter into details tell
us that the world has never known a period of greater
activity and spirituality than characterized the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church from 181 3 to 1829. Many of the
accounts of the labors and triumphs of the ministry in
those days read like " miracles of missions." The only
mode of travel, save in so far as they might go by boat
or canoe, was horseback or afoot, and it was no uncommon
PERILS OF TRAVEL. 289
thing for the missionaries to travel hundreds of miles in
order that they might be present at the meeting of their
presbyteries — and it was done in perils of wild beasts,
and wild waters, and often of wild men. They were not
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but they knew
very well the essentials of the gospel ; they were mighty
in the Scriptures, being full of the Holy Ghost and of a
consuming zeal for the salvation of sinners. There are no
statistics to show the number either of ministers or mem-
bers in the church at that time. We know the number
of presbyteries and who were their first members, but
what names were added to their rolls during these sixteen
years of the first Synod cannot now be ascertained. But
it is known that thousands were converted every year, a
large number of whom, for reasons of personal conven-
ience, joined other churches.
CHAPTER VI.
A LARGER GROWTH.
On Monday, October 27, 1828, at Franklin, Tenn., the
first Synod, which, from the date of its organization, had
also been a General Synod, adjourned sine die. It had re-
solved to divide itself into four synods preparatory to the
organization of a General Assembly. The new synods
were named : Missouri, including six presbyteries ; Frank-
Hn, including four presbyteries ; Green River, including four
presbyteries : and Columbia, also including four presby-
teries. The General Assembly was to hold its first meet-
ing in Princeton, Ky., the third Tuesday in May, 1829.
Such changes in the Form of Government as the organi-
zation of a General Assembly necessitated were made by
the General Synod, and, without any reference to the pres-
byteries, were accepted by common consent, and became
part of the laws of the church.^
Pursuant to the adjournment of the General Synod the
first General Assembly convened at Princeton, Ky., in
May, 1829. Sixteen of the eighteen presbyteries were
represented — a large proportion, considering the difficul-
ties of travel and the already widely extended area of the
church. The Rev. Thomas Calhoun was the moderator,
and Rev. Richard Beard, subsequently and for many years
professor of systematic theology in Cumberland University,
was the clerk. At this Assembly Rev. John W. Ogden
1 McDonnold's " History."
2qo
GROWTH OF THE WORK. 29 1
and Rev. M. H. Bone were appointed missionaries to
travel through the eastern section of the valley of the
Mississippi, to preach the gospel, and soHcit donations for
a college which, three years before, had been opened at
Princeton, Ky. These missionaries seem to have empha-
sized their function as evangeHsts rather than as soliciting
agents. They spent the summer and autumn in the State
of Ohio and in western Pennsylvania, preaching with
such power and demonstration of the Spirit that through
their instrumentality a great many sinners were converted.
Their work paved the way for extensive usefulness on
the part of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Ohio,
western Pennsylvania, and the State of New York. Two
years after this, in response to a petition from certain
members of the Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania, five
missionaries were sent by the General Assembly to the
western part of that State. A revival hardly less remark-
able than that of 1800 sprang up under their ministry, and
many churches were organized. A witness of their min-
istry, and member of the Presbyterian congregation that
had applied to the General Assembly for Cumberland
Presbyterian missionaries, thus wrote : '' God has often re-
vived his work among us here, but we have never before
witnessed anything to compare with the blessed work
which is now in progress among us through the instru-
mentality of these missionaries from the West." The
following year (1832) Pennsylvania Presbytery was or-
ganized, and Pennsylvania Synod in 1838. This Synod is
now composed of four presbyteries and many flourishing
churches, and since 1849 has sustained a college of great
usefulness at Waynesburg, Pa.
In 1828 Cumberland Presbyterianism was introduced
into Texas by Rev. Sumner Bacon, a volunteer and self-
supporting missionary. In 1837 Texas Presbytery was
292 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vi.
formed. There are now in that State 27 presbyteries and
551 reported churches.
Save during the years of the Civil War, the Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church has grown rapidly and without
interruption, until it now has churches in half the States
of the Union. It has a theological seminary in connection
with Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tenn., colleges
in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, and Texas, besides
high-schools innumerable under its influence. It has
always been the friend and earnest advocate of education,
but, yielding to the pressing urgency of its fields white
unto harvest, has never made the acquisition of the ancient
languages a condition of ordination on the part of its min-
istry— and thus, particularly in the earlier days, the bread
of life was broken unto thousands who might otherwise
have starved. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church has
either not had, or has lost, opportunities to develop and
advertise its theology, as other churches have been wont
to do, but within the scope of its own ministry it has not
failed to emphasize it. In its attitude toward other de-
nominations it has never been a belligerent church — not
so was it even in the more polemical days of half or three
quarters of a century ago. It has gone about doing good,
with malice toward none and with charity toward all, its
favorite theme ever being the simple and old, old story of
God's world-wide and redeeming love. But it did not
recognize God as arbitrary or lawless ; and it was anti-
nomian neither in practice nor tendency. It palliated no
sin, and offered no " larger hope," for this world or the
next, than repentance toward God and faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ during this present life. It was one of the
few churches, perhaps the only one, occupying large areas
in the North and South, whose organic union could with-
stand the sundering influence of questions culminating in
SECRET OF SUCCESS, 293
or growing out of the Civil War. It is a practical illustra-
tion of how beautiful it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity, even if it be necessary to that end to hold in
abeyance some matters of individual opinion and some
matters which belong rather to civil legislatures. But no
church has ever excelled the Cumberland Presbyterian in
its advocacy of the highest and purest type of Christian
living. It has mission stations in Japan and Mexico, and
from an early day has done much toward the evangeliza-
tion of the American Indian. Its evangelistic energy has
always exceeded its pastoral resources, and hence many
thousands of those converted under the influence of its
ministry have had to resort to other churches for Christian
nurture and admonition. Hence the Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church at the present time (1893) numbers only
some two hundred thousand communicants, whereas the
number to which its evangelical energy really entitles it
should be at least twice so many.
** Two principal causes," says the late Dr. Richard
Beard, " contributed to the success of the early ministry
of this church, * camp-meetings ' and what we called in
early days * circuit preaching.' Our fathers brought both
these institutions with them from the mother church.
They were not, it is true, indigenous to the Presby-
terian Church, but they had grown up as necessities
out of the revival. These modes of operation have now,
except in our frontier settlements, become obsolete with
us. They are adapted to newly and thinly inhabited set-
tlements, but otherwise they do not harmonize with our
mode of administration. . . . Another cause of the great
success of our early men is found in the character of the
labors of the men themselves. The great commission is
to preach. These men preachedy allowing the term its
most significant sense. Their homely but strong elocu-
294 ^-^^ CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. vi.
tion made its mark everywhere. Again, something was
perhaps attributable to the condition of the country itself.
It was new, and greatly excited on the subject of religion,
and the earnest manner in which the truth was presented
was well adapted to its habits of thought and feeling. I
add further, the ministry shared in an unusual degree the
spiritual cooperation of the people. The first generation
of Cumberland Presbyterians were the most intensely
spiritual people that I have ever known. It is charged, I
know, that old men look back and magnify the past, while
young men look forward ; but I cannot be mistaken on
this subject. These people lived nearer heaven than ordi-
nary Christians do now. A man would have been an ice-
berg who could not have participated in some degree in
the inspiration of their feelings and their prayers. If
they did not give much money, they gave their hearts to
the Word and to the work. The people strengthened the
preacher, and the preacher strengthened the people."
CHAPTER VII.
MISSIONS.
Even so early as 1819 the church took its first step in
the direction of formal missionary work. In different parts
of the Synod a common spirit seems to have moved the
hearts of many members of the new church in behalf of
the Indians. A number of communications came to the
meeting of the Synod of that year on the subject of doing
something for the improvement of these people. The
result was the establishment of a Christian mission school
within what is now the State of Mississippi. It was placed
under the supervision of Rev. Robert Bell. The school
was opened in 1820, and continued to about 1830. The
removal of the Indians to the Indian Territory made its
discontinuance necessary, or rather its continuance un-
necessary and useless. Seed was sown, however, which
is bearing fruit now. Robert Bell deserves a monument
at the side of those of David Brainerd, John Elliot, and
others who have sought the salvation of the souls of the
poor Indians, rather than the violent possession of their
hunting-grounds.
Just seventy-three years ago, the honored fathers of
this church inaugurated a foreign mission which devel-
oped the same spirit of self-denial and heroism which the
missionary work is now developing.
For many years the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
codperated with the American Board. The first foreign
missionary sent out by the church, independently, was a
295
296 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. vii.
consecrated young negro, who had been manumitted by
his master and was sent to Siberia in 1852. In i860
Rev. J. C. Armstrong was sent as a missionary to Turkey.
Both missions failed, owing to the outbreak of the Civil
War, which greatly crippled the church. In 1872 Rev.
M. L. Gordon was sent as a missionary to Japan, and our
force there has since increased to four men and twelve
women, the latter being sent out by the Women's Board.
Rev. Dr. Gordon is now working under the American
Board. In 1886 the mission work in Mexico was begun,
and there are now five missionaries on the field. There is
an increasing missionary spirit in the church among the
young people, and it hopes soon to enter upon a larger
and wider field of usefulness. The missionary work of
the church is under the control of the Board of Missions,
organized in 1845, which also does the work of a Board
of Church Erection. It is now located at St. Louis. The
Women's Board of Foreign Missions was organized in
1 880, and is located at Evansville, Ind. It may be worthy
of mention that the first Cumberland Presbyterian Board
of Missions ever organized ( 1 8 1 8) was a ** Women's Board. ' *
It seems to have been local in character.
CHAPTER VIII.
EDUCATION.
In 1825 the Synod entered upon the work of education.
A college was established at Princeton, Ky., known as
Cumberland College. Franceway R. Cossitt, who came to
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church from the Episcopa-
lians and had been educated in one of the best colleges
of New England, was the first president. That old insti-
tution produced much fruit. In 1842 it was removed to
Lebanon, Tenn., and chartered as "Cumberland Univer-
sity." It has, as a part of its corporation, a law school,
which has long since acquired great reputation throughout
the South and Southwest, and a theological seminary,
founded in 1853. The Rev. Richard Beard, D.D., was
for some time the only professor. Hundreds of young
men preparing for the ministry received their theological
education in part or entirely from him. This seminary
now has four full professors, and two others who deliver
shorter courses of lectures. The number of students has
been steadily increasing since the reorganization in 1877,
and there is reason to believe that the seminary has a
bright future. Waynesburg College, at Waynesburg, Pa.,
was established in 1850, Madison College, its predecessor
in that part of the church, having been discontinued.
Other institutions are: Lincoln University, at Lincoln, III,
founded in 1864; Trinity University, at Tehuacana, Tex.,
established in 1869; Missouri Valley College, at Marshall,
297
298 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS, CChap. viii.
Mo. ; Bethel College, at McKenzIe, Tenn. ; and various
Presbyterial Academies, and other schools under the in-
fluence of the church. A Board of Education was organ-
ized at Nashville in 1855. In recent years it has done an
increasingly useful work. It has not only aided a great
many young men to obtain an education, but through its
agent, the Rev. J. S. Grider, D.D., has added largely to the
endowment fund of the theological seminary at Lebanon.
CHAPTER IX.
PUBLICATION.
The first attempt to establish a church paper was made
in 1830, the '' Religious and Literary Intelligencer" being
that year started at Princeton, Ky. In 1832 it was re-
moved to Nashville, and became the " Revivalist." The
next year it became the '' Cumberland Presbyterian," under
which title it is still published.
A great many other weeklies and other periodicals ap-
peared from time to time in the interests of the church.
In 1845, at Uniontown, Pa., the Rev. Milton Bird issued
the first number of the *' Theological Medium," the more
recent name of which is the " Cumberland Presbyterian
Review," and the publication of which has been kept up
quite regularly from the date of its first number until re-
cently. The doctrines, polity, and policy of the church
have been ably discussed from time to time in its pages,
as also many questions of general interest. The church
also issues, through its Board of Publication, the usual
Sabbath-school literature. This Board was organized in
1867 and located at Nashville. Prior to this time the
publishing work had been done by " committees," in
Pittsburg and Louisville.
299
CHAPTER X.
IN RELATION TO THE NEGRO.
A BRIEF word may be added in regard to the rela-
tion of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to the negro.
Before the Civil War there were some twenty thousand
Cumberland Presbyterians. They belonged to the same
congregations of which white people were members, and
sat under the ministry of the same pastors, though they
had preachers of their own race and often held separate
meetings. ** This order of things broke down during the
war, and in 1869 the colored people asked and received
the consent of the General Assembly to the organization
of a separate African Cumberland Presbyterian Church." ^
This church has its own General Assembly, 20 presby-
teries, and over 15,000 communicants.
1 Dr. J. M. Howard, editor "Cumberland Presbyterian," Nashville.
300
CHAPTER XL
PROGRESS.
In i8io there were three Cumberland Presbyterian
ministers. In i860 there were 97 presbyteries, not less
than 15 chartered colleges, and a total membership of
100,000. To-day, notwithstanding the loss of its colored
ministers and members, it has 126 presbyteries, some 1700
ministers, 540 licentiates and candidates, and about 200,-
000 members. These numbers are not so large, perhaps,
as they might have been, but *' some comfort in our
deficiencies and hope for our future growth," says Dr.
McDonnold, " may be derived from comparisons." The
Presbyterian Church in America in 18 19 was about one
hundred and twenty years old — some forty years older
than the Cumberland Presbyterian is now. But at that
date it had fifty-three presbyteries in all, no Board of
Publication, and no Board of Missions. This slow prog-
ress was doubtless caused in part by the Revolutionary
War, and adverse influences in colonial times. But there
were mighty difficulties and hindrances in the early days
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church scarcely less em-
barrassing— and they have not been restricted to the early
days. It is well that the lifetime of ecclesiastical genera-
tions also is brief, for the young begin the struggle afresh,
inheriting the hopes of those who have gone before them,
and not their despairs. There are many reasons to-day for
believing that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is now
301
302 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xi.
entering upon a new era of activity and prosperity, and
that it has before it an enlarging field and a growing mis-
sion of usefulness. The improved condition of its schools
of general learning, and of its one theological seminary, is
a sign of a better future, as is also the increasing number
of regular pastors. '* And," said a very old minister, not
very long ago, " increasing attention is paid to experi-
mental and spiritual religion." At any rate, we inherit
his hope, and " press on."
CHAPTER XII.
DOCTRINES.
The first published statement of the Cumberland Pres-
byterian doctrines was the brief compend unanimously-
approved and issued by the Cumberland Synod at the
time of its organization, October, 1813. It was under-
stood that, in the main, the Westminster Confession was
accepted, the following points of dissent being stated :
first, that there are no eternal reprobates; second, that
Christ died not for a part only, but for all mankind ; third,
that all infants dying in infancy are saved through Christ
and the sanctification of the Spirit ; fourth, that the Spirit
of God operates on the world, or, in other words, coex-
tensively with the atonement of Christ, in such manner as
to leave all men inexcusable.
As to the doctrines of predestination and election, Cum-
berland Presbyterians have always thought that they are
too mysterious to have any rightful place in a Confes-
sion of Faith ; nor are they pleased with the application
which rigid Calvinists make of these doctrines, or which
Arminians make of their rejection. They do not deem it
necessary to approve the doctrine of final apostasy in order
to avoid these other doctrines ; nor do they deem it neces-
sary to approve these other doctrines as interpreted by
the more rigid Calvinists in order that they may hold to
the doctrine of the final preservation of believers. To
them there seems to be a better way. To them the tem-
poral promise of God is just as valid as his eternal decree.
But they accept also, of course, every word of Romans
303
304 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xii.
viii. 29, 30, supposing, however, that the Apostle was
writing both to believers and concerning believers in
Christ. These were " predestinated to be conformed to
the image of his Son." Cumberland Presbyterians are
confident that these doctrines should not be so interpreted
as to make anything the creature has done, or can do, at
all meritorious in his salvation, or to take the least degree
of the honor of our justification and perseverance from
God's unmerited grace and Christ's pure righteousness.
On the other hand, they are equally confident that these
doctrines should not be so construed as to make God the
author of sin, directly or indirectly, either Adam's sin or
any subsequent sin of his fallen race ; or to contradict the
express and repeated declarations of God's Word on the
extent of the atonement and operations of the Spirit; or
to contradict the sincerity of God's expostulations with
sinners, and make his oath to have no meaning, when he
swears he has no pleasure in their death ; or to resolve the
whole character of the Deity into his sovereignty, without
a due regard to all other of his adorable attributes.^
The first Synod, at its first meeting, unanimously ap-
proved and published the following doctrinal specifications :
1. That Adam was made upright, pure, and free; that he was necessarily
under the moral law, which binds all intelligences ; and having transgressed
it, he was consequently, with all his posterity, exposed to eternal punishment
and misery.
2. That Christ, the second Adam, represented just as many as the first,
consequently made an atonement for all, " which will be testified in due time."
But that the benefit of that atonement will be received only by the believer.
3. That all Adam's family are totally depraved ; conceived in sin ; going
astray from the womb, and all " children of wrath," therefore must " be born
again," justified and sanctified, or they never can enter into the kingdom of
God.
4. That justification is by faith alone as the instrument ; by the merits of
Christ's active and passive obedience as the meritorious cause ; and by the
operations of God's Spirit as the efficacious or active cause.
1 Smith's "History."
DEPARTURES FROM WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 305
5. That as the sinner is justified on the account of Christ's righteousness
X>eing imputed or accounted to him, on the same account he will be enabled
to go on from one degree of grace to another, in a progressive life of sancti-
lication, until he is fit to be gathered to the garner of God, who will certainly
take to glory every man who is really justified ; that is, he, Christ, has be-
come wisdom (light to convince), righteousness (to justify), sanctification (to
cleanse), and redemption (to glorify) to every truly regenerated soul.
t». In this item is stated the orthodox or traditional doctrine of the Trinity.
The Synod, at the same meeting at which this brief
platform of doctrine was adopted, appointed a committee
to prepare a fuller creed. This committee simply read
over the Westminster Confession item by item, changing
or expunging such expressions as did not suit them. This
process was repeated ; and while the members of the com-
mittee were thus at work, by order of the Synod all the
churches were observing a day of fasting and prayer for
the divine guidance to be given to them.
Oh for those trustful days! Is it always true that the
period of a church's earliest love is also the period of its
sweetest repose in Christ ? A day of fasting and prayer
for the divine guidance! The Cumberland Presbyterian
Church has always been religious. It has always believed,
with St. Bernard, that God '' is more easily and worthily
sought and found by prayer than by disputation." But its
mysticism has never been either unchurchly or heretical.
The principal departures, on the part of the commit-
tee, from the Westminster Confession were in chapters iii.
and X. relative to ''eternal decrees" and ''effectual caUing."
The Presbyterian polity and the evangelical Presbyterian
doctrines were retained. This revised Confession of Faith
was adopted October 14, 18 14, and continued to be the
creed of the church until 1883, at which time a revision
of it was adopted. The revision of 1883 retains the same
essential doctrines set forth in that of 1814, though in a
somewhat briefer form and under a slightly modified ar-
306 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. xii.
rangement. The Catechism was also changed in so far as
to make it conform to the Confession.
The Confession is by no means bhnd to the eternal
sovereignty of God, nor to the stern fact of eternal retri-
bution, but it delights in beholding God as exercising his
sovereignty in love, and in contemplating the various
aspects of the truth that he so loved the fallen and un-
worthy world as to give his only-begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life — and this other truth, that " the manifestation of the
Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.'*
But times change, and men and churches change with
them. It is no secret that for years Presbyterian pulpits
have either been drifting or consciously moving toward
Cumberland Presbyterianism. Thousands of them are
already in the same harbor. Statements that were once
bitterly denounced, and for the making of which the Cum-
berland Presbyterians were excluded by the Presbyterian
leaders from sitting at the same Lord's table, are now on
everybody's tongue. Monuments in memory of the slain
prophets are being erected by those whose fathers slew
them. Cumberland Presbyterians have never denied that
God is just. That the just Judge of all the earth will do
right, is indeed one of their cardinal principles. But both
in their Confession and in their pulpits they bring into bold
relief that other aspect of the same truth wherein it is said
that '' God is love." And in reply to the question. How
is it, in view of manifold teachings of his Word interpreted
in the light of that idea of eternal right with which he
himself has endowed us, how is it that God could create
some men and angels for no other purpose than to damn
them for his own good pleasure? it has never been re-
garded as sufficient to say, " It is a part of the plan." No
church can stand more reverently in the presence of holy
DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT, 307
and inscrutable mysteries than can the Cumberland Pres-
byterian; but it creates no mysteries, and for the most
part it stands silently, the only mystery which it parades,
either in its books or in its pulpit, being the mystery of
God's redeeming wisdom and love. The distinction be-
tween the pretention, or reprobation, of adults and of
infants is one that can exist only in words ; for if one was
eternally reprobated, he was of course eternally reprobated
in infancy and all the other stages of his life, regardless
of the time when he should die. Shall we think of God
reprobating, or as even negatively passing over, any hu-
man being simply on condition that that human being
did not die in infancy ? That is what it amounts to. But
the Presbyterian pulpit and the Presbyterian theological
schools and press now abound in vigorous rejection of
the severe elements of Calvinism which the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church disowned long ago.
Concerning the Cumberland Presbyterian view of the
atonement a further word may also be permitted. With
this church it is an unlimited ''provision." The phrases
" unlimited in sufficiency " and " limited in efficiency " can
be employed just as consistently by Cumberland Presby-
terians as by the most rigid Calvinists, but the former do
not interpret them as do the latter. Cumberland Presby-
terians are not Universalists. They know only too well —
or at least they have only too good reasons to apprehend
— that all men will not be saved. But the '' limited effi-
ciency " is not due to an eternal decree ; and the unlimited
sufficiency on the divine side is only an unlimited possibil-
ity on the human. In dying for the race Christ died for
every member of the race in the same sense, in the first
place. In dying for all he gave to each a possibility of
being saved. He died in behalf of the race ; he died in
the place of the race — the potential substitute of all, the
308 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. xii.
actual substitute, so far as accountable adults are concerned,
of the believing individual only, him who identifies himself
with Christ as Christ identified himself with him ; and thus,
going with Christ into death, he also returns with him to
newness of life. Cumberland Presbyterianism, of course,
rejects that interpretation of ** substitution" which the more
rigid Calvinistic view of election and reprobation requires
to be placed upon it.
No penalty is in any case suffered twice ; and Christ's
atoning death is in no degree rendered nugatory by the
fact that all men are not saved. The atoning death which
is void of effect in the case of him who is never saved, is
the same atoning death which is efficacious in the case of
him who is saved — and the reason has just been stated.
It required just as much divine effort, reverently speak-
ing, to save a thousand as to save many myriads, and no
more to save the latter number than the former. In either
case it was the death of the Son of God, and in either case
his death shall not be without avail; he shall see of the
travail of his soul and be satisfied.
But however differently individual Cumberland Presby-
terian writers may interpret the facts, the church as a
whole has found it possible, so it thinks, to adjust its
theory of the atonement to its theory of the decrees, and
yet avoid Universalism on the one hand and Pelagianism
on the other; and the adjustment has been found to work
well in the actual experience of the church. So also is
the Presbyterian Church doing, quietly or in controversy,
as it moves gradually away from the old severe construc-
tions placed upon the doctrines of reprobation and election.
And as the times have been changing, the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church has gone on in her quiet and yet fer-
vent and diligent way, conserving the truth as she sees it,
seeking him whom her soul loves, gleaning such sheaves
DOCTRINES. 309
as she might in the Master's fields. She hath done what
she could to make the world better and happier. She
has not screamed in the street. She has broken none of
her Lord's bruised reeds, nor quenched his smoking flax.
And while in doing all this she has seen hard times, she
has not been utterly discouraged.
Perhaps in some sweet irenical day the mother church
and the daughter shall embrace each other again, and
they which have been twain so long shall live no more
asunder.
HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH.
BY
THOMAS C. JOHNSON, D.D.,
Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity, in Union Theological Seminary,
Hampden Sidney, Va.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The following are the chief sources and subsequent historical works con-
sulted and relied upon for the facts set forth in the following pages :
General Sources.
Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States. Richmond, 1861 sqq.
The Distinctive Principles of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,
commonly called the Southern Presbyterian Church, as set forth in the
Formal Declarations, and illustrated by extracts from the proceedings of
the General Assembly from 1861 to 1870, etc. Richmond, Committee of
Publication, 1870.
The files of the reports of the several executive committees of the church,
viz. : those of Foreign Missions, Home Missions, Education, Publica-
tion, Colored Evangelization.
The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,
as adopted by the General Assembly of 1876. Richmond, Presbyterian
Committee of Publication, looi Main Street.
Minutes of General Assembly, O. S. 1861-93.
Minutes of General Assembly, N. S. 1855-69.
Concise Records of the most important proceedings, papers, speeches, etc., of
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, at its session held in St. Louis, A. D. 1866. Containing also
in full the Declaration and Testimony. St. Louis, published at the
office of the Missouri Presbyterian, 1866.
Minutes of the Synod of Kentucky. The manuscript copy from 1866-81.
Minutes of the Synod of Missouri, O. S., 1869. St. Louis, published at the
office of the Missouri Presbyterian, 1 869.
Histories and Biographies from the Sources and Collected
Works.
Alexander, Rev. W. A., A Digest of the Acts of the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, from its Organization to
the Assembly of I SSy, Inclusive, with Certain Historical and Explanatory
Notes. Richmond, Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1888.
Baird, Samuel J., D.D., A Collection of the Acts, Deliverances, and Testi-
monies of the Supreme Judiciary of the Presbyterian Church, from its
Origiti in America to the Present Time. Philadelphia, Presbyterian
Board of Publication, 821 Chestnut Street, 1855.
313
3 1 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Bancroft, George, History of the United States of America, from the Dis-
covery of the Continent. The author's latest revision. Six vols. New
York, D. Appleton & Co., 1887.
Briggs, Charles Augustus, D.D., American Presbyterianism. Its origin
and early history, together with an appendix of letters and documents,
many of which have recently been discovered. With maps. New York,
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885.
Dabney, Robert L., D.D., LL.D., Discussions. Edited by C. R.
Vaughn, D.D. Three vols. Richmond, Presbyterian Committee of
Publication, 1890-92. Theology. Third edition. Asbury Park, N. J.,
Presbyterian Publishing Company, 1885.
Foote, Wm. Henry, D.D., Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Bio-
graphical. Philadelphia, Wm. S. Martien, 142 Chestnut Street, 1850.
Also ditto, second series. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1855.
Same : Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative
of the Principles of a portion of her Early Settlers. New York, Robert
Carter, 58 Canal Street, 1846.
Hays, George P., D.D., LL.D., et al., Presbyterians. A popular
narrative of their origin, progress, doctrines, and achievements. New
York, J. A. Hill & Co., 1892.
Hodge, Charles, D.D., LL.D., The Constitutional History of the Pres-
byterian Church in the United States of America. In two parts. Phila-
delphia, William S. Martien, 1840.
Howe, George, D.D., History of the Presbyterian Church in South Car-
olina. Two vols. 8vo. Vol. i., Columbia, Dufifie & Chapman, 1870;
vol. ii., Columbia, W. J. Duffie, 1883.
Laws, S. S., D.D., A Letter to the Synod of Missouri (O. S.), which
met at Columbia, Mo., Oct. 8, 1872. New York, S. Angell, Book and
Pamphlet Printer, 410 Fourth Avenue, 1873.
McPheeters, Samuel B., Memoirs. By Rev. John S. Grasty. With In-
troduction by Rev. Stuart Robinson, D.D. St. Louis, Southwestern
Book and Publishing Co. ; Louisville, Davidson Brothers & Co., 187 1.
Moore, Wm. E., D.D., The Presbyterian Digest: A Compend of the Acts
and Deliverances of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Chuirh in
the United States of America. Compiled by order of the General Assem-
bly, 1873. Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1334 Chest-
nut Street.
Nevins, Alfred, D.D., LL.D., et al., Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America, including the N^orthern and
Southern Assemblies. Philadelphia, Presbyterian Encyclopedia Pub-
lishing Co., 1334 Chestnut Street, 1884.
Peck, Thos. E., D.D., LL.D., Notes on Ecclesiology. Richmond, Pres-
byterian Committee of Publication, 1882.
Smith, Hon. L. F., The History of Kentucky (Centennial edition) /n?w
its Earliest Discovery and Settlement, Embracing, etc. Louisville, Courier
Journal Job Printing Co., 1892.
Thomwell, James Henley, D.D., LL.D., The collected writings of
Edited by John B. Adger, D.D. Four vols. Richmond, Presbyterian
Committee of Publication, 1881-86. The Life and Letters of By B. M.
Palmer, D.D., LL.D. Richmond, Whittet & Shepperson, 1875.
PREFACE.
This sketch is designed, first of all, to trace the South-
ern Presbyterian Church from its roots in Europe ; to ex-
hibit its origin as a separate church, \X.s peculiar constitution
and character, its growth in numbers and in working effi-
ciency, its work at home and abroad, its relation to other
Christian churches ; to set forth, thus, the great problems
now before it; in short, to put before the student what
the church has been, and is, and should be as a factor in
the great forces which go to make up universal church
history.
It is designed, secondly, to furnish the materials for
answers to three specific questions, viz. : Why did the
Southern Presbyterian Church come into separate exist-
ence? Why has it continued till the present a separate
existence ? Are there any sufficient reasons why it should
continue for a longer time to maintain a separate exist-
ence ? These are paramount questions for this generation.
We have believed that Christia^is should labor for
church unity, not of the spirit only, but of the form.
While exalting the spiritual above the external, and hold-
ing that a true unity in Christ the head, a unity established
by the Spirit and maintained by the same blessed agent,
is compatible with the existence of a host of denomina-
315
3l6 PREFACE,
tions, we have believed that Christians should labor to ex-
hibit that unity in the external life of the church ; and that
our Lord's intercessory prayer can only be completely ful-
filled when the church militant is outwardly one.
But we have, also, believed that a church must exist
as a separate denomination while, and only while, in a
convenient territory, it has one or a group of truths of
fundamental importance for which to witness. And we
have beheved, furthermore, that there can be no union of
denominations pleasing in God's sight which is not intelli-
gently effected. We beheve that the church should know
its own past and its present, what it has stood for and
what it should now stand for, before it can, in a way to
please God, propose organic union. In the same way it
should know its neighbor with whom it thinks of uniting.
We have done what we could in these few pages to ex-
hibit fearlessly and truthfully what appears to have been
the true character and purpose of our church to the pres-
ent. Readers of more schools than one, perhaps, will be
displeased with the truth. We have wished to be con-
vincing. We have, therefore, resorted to laborious com-
piling, made the tmimpeachable records of the churches talk
wherever possible; and we have tried to reduce our own
personal equation to the lowest degree. We have let the
reader look through his own eyes at the facts, instead of
through ours.
Thomas Gary Johnson.
Hampden Sidney, Va.,
January, 1894.
THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS,
CHAPTER I.
THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS BEFORE l86l.^
The European sources of Southern Presbyterians are
almost as numerous as European nations; but the chief-
est of such sources have been the English Presbyterians,
the Dutch, the Germans, the Swiss, the Huguenots, the
Scotch, and the Scotch- Irish.
The English Presbyterians came into the colonies of
Virginia and the Carolinas from the start. Some of these
were nonconforming ; and of these those in Virginia after
1531 or 1533^ suffered much persecution, some of them
being driven to the colonies of Maryland or the Carolinas,
while others were forced into conformity. After the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the Presbyterian
Church came to be formally tolerated, its numerous con-
verts from the Episcopal Church showed, with a degree of
1 This chapter is intended to present only such a brief sketch of Presby-
terians, New and Old School, in the South, before 1861, as is necessary to
enable the reader to comprehend the body whose history he is invited to
follow through the period 1861-93. For a fuller account of these peoples
before 1861, the reader is referred to vol. vi., " Presbyterians."
2 Hodge, part i., p. 45. Compare Hays, p. 60.
317
3l8 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. i.
probability, that there had been many conforming Presby-
terians in that church. Indeed, Alexander Whitaker, '" the
self-denying apostle of Virginia,"^ had been a Cambridge
Puritan. He had established a Congregational Presbytery ^
for the government of the local church. He had written
"neither surplice nor subscription is spoken of" in Vir-
ginia.^ The Puritans in the Virginia colony continued to
have great freedom up to about 1530. After that they
suffered persecution, as we have asserted.
The Dutch were among the early settlers of Maryland
and of Charleston, S. C* Later they were found in the
valley of Virginia, and throughout the South. The Ger-
mans during the first three quarters of the eighteenth
century immigrated into Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Georgia, chiefly from Pennsylvania, but also directly
from South Germany.^ Bodies of Swiss, too, came into
South CaroHna between 1730 and 1750.^ The Dutch and
Swiss were Presbyterians ; and so, also, was a moiety of
the Germans. The Huguenots, particularly after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, made settlements in
our borders, the chief of which were in Virginia, on the
James, and in South Carolina, in Charleston and its neigh-
borhood."^ The Scotch immigrated into our territory in
large numbers from the beginning of the eighteenth cent-
ury on. Scotchmen from Argyleshire were in North
Carolina on the Cape Fear River in 1741. After the
battle of Culloden and the defeat of the Jacobites, Scotch
Highlanders came over in great numbers and settled be-
side their brethren on the Cape Fear and its tributaries.^
Scotchmen settled during the first half of the eighteenth
century, also, in parts of South Carolina, in Georgia, in
1 Bancroft, vol. i., p. 141. 2 Briggs, p. 86.
3 Bancroft, vol. i., p. 141. * Ibid., vol. i., p. 430.
5 Hodge, part i., p. 50. ^ Ibid.
^ Bancroft, vol. i., p. 432. ^ Hodge, part i., p. 66.
THE ANCESTORS. 319
the Piedmont region of North Carolina and Virginia, and
had settled at a much earlier time in Maryland. The
Scotch- Irish, irritated by increase of rents, and by a tax
to support a church not of their choice, began in the first
quarter of the eighteenth century a more rapid immigra-
tion into America. These people, coming directly, or
after a stoppage in Pennsylvania, spread themselves over
the valley of Virginia, the Piedmont region of Virginia
and the Carolinas, and more sparsely over the whole re-
maining South Atlantic Colonies ^ — "a staunch and stal-
wart stock" of Presbyterians.
From these older States the settlers, or their children,
subsequently passed over into the lands of Kentucky and
Missouri, of Tennessee and Alabama, of Mississippi and
the States of the Southwest. In their earlier immigra-
tions the Scotch and Scotch- Irish did not, as a rule, settle
in large bodies, but singly, and were scattered widely over
the Middle and Southern Colonies. Hence, up to 1750
they had, except in a few favored localities, no regular
religious ministrations. There was, of course, no organic
church connection among them. Independency, even,
was in the ascendant in the Charleston colony, the most
favored of them all in the ecclesiastical privileges.
Nevertheless, from about 1650 on, Presbyterian settlers
in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina were looked
after by such servants of God as the Revs. Francis
Doughty, about 1657-59, Matthew Hill, 1667-76, Will-
iam Trail, Francis Makemie, and their followers; while
the churches of Charleston and in the vicinity were served
by Puritans Hke John Cotton, or Scotch Presbyterians like
Archibald Stobo, and their followers.
Their Character, as Illustrated in the Civil arid Religious
Life. — Under this guidance and the '' favoring conditions of
1 Hodge, part i., pp. 67, 68; Howe, vol. i., pp. 197 ff.
320 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. i.
our Southern life " these several strains of European Pres-
byterianism were so blended as to make ** a body of Chris-
tians, singularly homogeneous, conservative, truth-loving,
and ardently devoted to right and liberty. The courtly
and cultivated Huguenot, the stern and simple-hearted
Highlander, the strong, earnest, faithful Scotch- Irish, the
conscientious Puritan, and the frank, honest Teuton, con-
tributed of the wealth of their character and the glory of
their history. Devotion to principle was the guiding star of
their action." ^ They have been devoted to the maintenance
of their civil rights. No people has shown a higher degree
of patriotism. The act of the Scotch-Irish met in Abing-
don, Va., January 20, 1775 ;2 the Mecklenburg Declaration
of Independence, made on the 20th of May, 1775 ;^ their
conduct in the Revolutionary War — such as to draw from
General Washington the famous encomium on the men of
Western Virginia — are sufficient proofs. Nor were they
prepared to show less of heroic devotion to the country
in the calamitous struggle of 1861. They have been
equally zealous, to say the least, for religious liberty.
The petition from the Presbytery of Hanover, dated No-
vember II, 1774, *' To the Honorable the Speaker and the
Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses," of Virginia,^ and
the memorials from the same Presbytery — in 1776^ and
in 1777^ — to the same legislative body, at once leave no
doubt as to where Mr. Jefferson got his views of religious
liberty, and evince the fact of the zeal of the Presbyterian
people of Virginia for religious liberty. These people
have shown themselves as eager for the truth as for lib-
1 Dr. Moses D. Hoge, in Hays's " Presbyterians," p. 480.
2 Bancroft, vol. iv., pp. lOO, 10 1 ; Briggs, p. 348.
3 Bancroft, vol. iv., p. 196; Briggs, p. 340.
4 This petition M^as published for the first time in the " Central Presby-
terian," May 16, 1888, by the Hon. Wm. Wirt Henry, LL.D., Richmond, Va.
5 See Foote's " Sketches of Virginia," series i., pp. 323 ff.
^ Jbid.y series i., pp. 326, 327.
RICE'S OVERTURE ON MISSIONS. 32 1
erty. Academies were often erected beside the churches.
The pastors were frequently teachers as well as preachers.
Queen's Museum, in Mecklenburg County, N. C, was
founded and obtained a charter from the colonial govern-
ment in 1770. This charter, though set aside by the king
and council, was amended, and a second time granted by
the colonial legislature in 1771. The king repealed it
by proclamation, evidently because several of the trus-
tees were Presbyterian ministers.^ The independent com-
monwealth of North Carolina chartered the institution
again in 1777 as Liberty Hall. About the same time
Hanover Presbytery took '' into consideration the great
expediency of erecting a seminary of learning." As a
result academies were very soon established, one of which
grew into Washington College in the valley of Virginia,
the other into Hampden Sidney College in Southside,
Va., each being at once a monument to patriotism and
fidelity to religious convictions, and the means of support-
ing these virtues as long as, in the mercy of God, it shall
remain substantially unperverted.
So the church ran her early course.
We cannot, in this sketch, follow her in detail to 1861.
That can be fairly inferred from her start and from her
condition on the eve of the war between the States. We
beg leave, though, to point out one very worthy trait
of Southern Presbyterians during the early part of the
nineteenth century. They were a missionary body. It
was from Dr. John Holt Rice, the founder of Union Theo-
logical Seminary, in Virginia, that the famous overture
on missions came before the General Assembly of 1831.
He asked the Assembly to adopt the following resolutions :
First, That the Presbyterian Church in the United States is a missionary
society, the object of which is to aid in the conversion of the world ; and
1 Foote's " Sketches of North Carolina," p. 513.
322 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. i.
that every member of the church Is a member for life of the said society, and
bound, in maintenance of his Christian character, to do all in his power for
the accomplishment of this object. Second, ministers of the gospel in con-
nection with the Presbyterian Church are most solemnly required to present
this subject to the members of their respective congregations, using every
effort to make them feel their obligations and to induce them to contribute
according to their ability. 1
This paper stirred the church.
The Status of Southern Presbyterians in i86i. — In 1861
there were south of Mason and Dixon's Hne 12 synods
of the Old School Church, 1275 churches, and 96,550
communicants. There were three flourishing theological
seminaries within her bounds, each under the control of one
or more synods, viz., Union Seminary in Virginia, Colum-
bia Seminary in Columbia, S. C, and Danville in Kentucky.
There were important colleges under the more or less
careful superintendence of the body, e.g., Hampden Sid-
ney College and Washington College in Virginia, Davidson
College in North Carolina, Center College in Kentucky,
et al.
In 1 86 1 there were in the same territory, constitut-
ing the United Synod of the South, 3 synods, with 199
churches, 11,581 communicants. Steps had been taken
for the founding of a theological seminary, and $70,000
had been subscribed and partly paid in for this purpose.
The Synod had under its care one college, at Marysville,
Tenn.
No part of the church had a more cultivated ministry
than the Southern Presbyterian Church of the Old School.
Their seminaries were manned by some of the very ablest
men in either of the two churches. North and South.
Thornwell was in his meridian splendor at Columbia;
Dabney and Peck, slower in reaching their maturity, as
1 For the whole of this able and solemnly important paper see Assembly's
Digest, Baird's Collection, p. 363.
LEADING MINISTERS,
323
well as younger in years, were teaching with marked abil-
ity at Union ; Breckenridge was illustrating as the day,
or obscuring, according to his subject, as the night, the
themes with which the theologian deals, at Danville;
Palmer and Hoge and others were edifying as well as de-
hghting large and cultivated audiences day after day. A
ministry, generally highly cultured and especially trained,
was serving with acceptance the people of God. No con-
siderable part of the church elsewhere surpassed the South
in all that goes to make intelligent and honest Presbyte-
rianism. It had been a happy, a blessed portion of the
Church of God.
CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE
CONFEDERATE STATES.
Jupiter swallowed Metis lest she should bear, in their
coming child, one wiser than himself. But that child
sprang, the fully panoplied Minerva, wise and strong and
impregnably chaste, from the head of her monster father.
If any one had asked, ** What are the grounds on which
Minerva claims the right of existence among the gods
and goddesses?" it might well have been said: '* On the
ground of the virtuous strength and happiness which she
can achieve in and for her worshipers, as well as on the
ground of the repentance and reformation which she may
be able to work among the gods and goddesses them-
selves, including her father."
The occasion of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States coming into existence was the successful effort, on
the part of the majority of the Old School Assembly of
1 86 1, to usurp the crown rights of the Redeemer in mak-
ing new terms of church-membership ; and, in the same
act, to prostitute the church to the state so far as to hold
the Southern Presbyterians to the support of the Federal
Government, as over against the governments of their
several sovereign States, on pain of ejection from the
church in case of failure to comply with the terms of
church-membership thus made.
On the 1 2th of April, 1861, the Confederacy had been
forced to begin the bombardment of Fort Sumter; for
the Federal Government had been about to provision anew
324
THE ASSEMBLY OF 1861. 325
and reinforce and render unconquerable this doorway
which it held into the heart of the South. The bombard-
ment turned out to be so successful that in spite of a
heroic resistance the fort fell into the hands of the South
within thirty-six hours. The fall of Fort Sumter was used
with consummate skill by the Northern demagogues.
Holy Writ tells us of a certain Levite, whose concubine
was done to death by the men of Gibeah in Benjamin,
that " when he was come into his house, he took a knife,
and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together
with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all
the coasts of Israel, so that it came to pass that all that
saw it said. There was no such deed done nor seen from
the day that the children of Israel came up out of Egypt
until this day." Not less striking were the representa-
tions made by the leaders of the North over the " insult
to the national flag in attacking Fort Sumter." The pas-
sions of the masses were aroused. The whole country
was aflame with war. On the 15th of April President
Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers
to quell the "insurrection," as he called it. Though his
proclamation drove four more States into the Confeder-
acy, the rest of the country responded with four times as
many men as he asked for.
The Assembly of 1861, which convened in Philadelphia
on May i6th, met in an atmosphere surcharged with the
war-spirit. Many ministers and elders from all sections
of the country had fondly hoped that the church might
maintain her unity in spite of political disunion. They
had hoped that her spirituality, her divine origin, and
Christ-like character might be all the more brightly illus-
trated by her course in the midst of what even then gave
awful promise of being one of the fiercest civil wars of
all history. But their hopes were doomed to an early
326 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
blighting. Such union could only be maintained by the
church's keeping within her own sphere, and steering
clear of the political issues on which the ship of state had
become dismembered. And there was a party — at first
small, but destined to rapid growth under extraneous
pressure and ignoble motives^ — in the church which had
determined to make the General Assembly indorse the
Federal Government at Washington and pledge its sup-
port thereto. This was, of course, to prostitute the church
to the state — nay, to a party in the state. But what is it
men will not prostitute, and to what will they not make
that prostitution when driven on by prejudice, passion, and
revenge ?
The venerable Dr. Spring, of the Brick Presbyterian
Church, New York, probably at the urgent insistence of
others, with a clearer vision of the nature and consequence
of the action but with less of conscience than himself
thereat, so early as the third day of the Assembly intro-
duced the following resolution :
That a special committee be appointed to inquire into the expediency of
the Assembly's making some expression of their devotion to the Union of
these States, and their loyalty to the government ; and if in their judgment
it is expedient so to do, they report what that expression shall be. 2
1 Dr. J. H. Vandyke says: "There was at first a large majority who
were opposed to any political deliverance whatever. They were in favor of
simply asserting the gi-eat Scriptural doctrine of obedience to civil rulers,
accompanied by kind injunctions to study the things that made for peace.
But as the Assembly proceeded with its business, the pressure from without,
and a little leaven working within, changed the spirit and purposes of the
body. That kind of martyrdom so eloquently portrayed by Dr. Thomas a
few days ago, as consisting of applause in the galleries, and other indications
of popular will, began to make its influence felt. There were, moreover,
indications of another kind of martyrdom in the streets, whose instruments
would not be waving of pocket-handkerchiefs and clapping of fair hands, but
tar and feathers, ropes and lamp-posts. . . . Whether from these causes or
not, it is well known that the Assembly underwent a speedy and marvelous
change in its spirit and in its piirpose ; until ' in an evil hour her rash hand
reaching forth,' she passed the famous, or rather infaynoiis^ Spring Resolu-
tion."— "Concise Record of the Assembly," i866, p. 55.
2 ** Minutes of the General Assembly," O. S., 1861, p. 303.
REV. DR, SPRING'S RESOLUTIONS. 327
This resolution was laid on the table by a vote of 123
to 102. But the Progressives were not to be balked.
Only three days later Dr. Spring offered a paper with
resolutions respecting the appointment of religious so-
lemnities for the 4th of July next, and the duty of min-
isters and churches in relation to the " condition of our
country."^ The house made the consideration of these
resolutions the first order of the day for the Friday
next, May 24th. Friday brought a protracted and heated
debate over the resolutions, and a substitute moved by
Dr. Charles Hodge. The debate continued Saturday and
Monday. Monday evening there was an effort made, under
the lead of Dr. Hodge, to lay the whole business on the
table; but it was defeated, the vote being 87 yeas and
153 nays. Tuesday morning the matter was referred to
a special committee, with instructions to report in the
afternoon. Nine were appointed on this committee. They
presented a majority report with eight names affixed,
and a minority report with one name subscribed, that of
Dr. William C. Anderson, of San Francisco. After further
discussion the majority report failed of adoption, the vote
standing 84 yeas and 128 nays. Dr. Anderson's report
was then taken up. It consisted of Dr. Spring's resolu-
tions, with a slight alteration. It received an amendment,
making the report as follows :
Gratefully acknowledging the distinguished bounty and care of Almighty
God toward this favored land, and recognizing our obligation to submit to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, this General Assembly adopts
the following resolutions :
Resolved, i. That in view of the present agitated and unhappy condition
of our country, the first day of July next be set apart as a day of prayer
throughout our bounds ; and that on this day ministers and people be called
on humbly to confess and bewail our national sins ; to offer our thanks to the
Father of lights for his abundant and undeserved goodness toward us as a
nation ; to seek his guidance and blessing upon our rulers and their coun-
^ " Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, p. 308.
328 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
sels, as well as on the Congress of the United States about to assemble ; and
to implore him, in the name of Jesus Christ, the great High-Priest of the
Christian profession, to turn away his anger from us, and speedily restore
to us the blessings of an honorable peace.
Resolved, 2. That this General Assembly, in the spirit of Christian patriot-
ism which the Scriptures enjoin, and which has always characterized this
church, do hereby acknowledge and declare our obligations to promote and
perpetuate, so far as in us lies, the integrity of these United States, and to
strengthen, uphold, and encourage the Federal Government in the exercise
of all its functions under our noble Constitution ; and to this Constitution, in
all its provisions, requirements, and principles, we profess our unabated
loyalty. And to avoid all misconceptions, the Assembly declare that by the
terms the " Federal Government," as here used, is not meant any particular
administration, or the peculiar opinions of any particular party, but that
central administration which, being at any time appointed and inaugurated
according to the forms prescribed in the Constitution of the United States, is
the visible representative of our national existence, l
This paper was adopted by a vote of 156 yeas to 66
nays. It was revolutionary, filled with the very genius of
usurpation and prostitution of the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Dr. Hodge and others gave notice that they pro-
tested against this action of the Assembly for reasons to
be given. The protest when it came was substantially as
follows :
We, the undersigned, respectfully protest against the action of the General
Assembly in adopting the minority report of the committee on the state of
the country.
We make this protest, not because we do not acknowledge loyalty to our
country to be a moral and religious duty, according to the Word of God,
which requires us to be subject to the powers that be, nor because we deny
the right of the Assembly to enjoin that, and all other like duties, on the
ministers and churches under its care, but because we deny the right of the
General Assembly to decide the political question to what government the
allegiance of Presbyterians as citizens is due, and its right to make that de-
cision a condition of membership in our church.
That the paper adopted by the Assembly does decide the political question
just stated is in our judgment undeniable. It asserts, not only the loyalty of
this body to the Constitution of the Union, but it promises, in the name of
all the churches and ministers whom it represents, to do all that in them
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly," O. S., 1861, pp. 329, 330.
REV, DR. HODGE'S PROTEST. 329
lies to strengthen, uphold, and encourage the Federal Government. It is,
however, a notorious fact that many of our ministers and members conscien-
tiously believe that the allegiance of the citizens of this country is primarily
due to the States to which they respectively belong; and, therefore, that
when any State renounces its connection with the United States and its alle-
giance to the Constitution, the citizens of that State are bound by the laws
of God to continue loyal to their State, and obedient to its laws. The paper
adopted by the Assembly virtually declares, on the other hand, that the alle-
giance of the citizen is due to the United States, anything in the Constitution
or ordinances or laws of the several States to the contrary notwithstanding.
It is not the loyalty of the members constituting this Assembly, nor of our
churches or ministers in any one portion of our country, that is thus asserted,
but the loyalty of the whole Presbyterian Church, North and South, East
and West.
Allegiance to the Federal Government is recognized or declared to be the
duty of all churches and ministers represented in this body. In adopting this
paper, therefore, the Assembly does decide the great political question which
agitates and divides the country. The question is. Whether the allegiance of
our citizens is primarily to the State or to the Union. However clear our
own convictions of the correctness of this decision may be, or however deeply
we may be impressed with its importance, yet it is not a question which this
Assembly has a right to decide.
That the action of the Assembly in the premises does not only decide the
political question referred to, but makes that decision a term of membership
in our church, is no less clear. It puts into the mouths of all represented
in this body a declaration of loyalty and allegiance to the Union and to the
Federal Government. But such a declaration made by our members residing
in what are called the seceding States is treasonable. Presbyterians under
the jurisdiction of those States cannot, therefore, make that declaration.
They are consequently forced to choose between allegiance to their State and
allegiance to the church.
The General Assembly, in thus deciding a political question, and making
that decision practically a condition of membership to the church, has in our
judgment violated the constitution of the church, and usurped the prerogative
of the Divine Master. ...
In the third place, we protest because we regard the action of the Assembly
as altogether unnecessary and uncalled for. . . . We are fully persuaded that
we best promote the interests of the country by preserving the integrity and
unity of the church.
We regard this action of the Assembly, therefore, as a great national
calamity, as well as the most disastrous to the interests of our church which
has marked its history.
We protest, fourthly, because we regard the action of the Assembly as
unjust and cruel in its bearings on our Southern brethren.
And finally, we protest because we believe the act of the Assembly will not
330 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. m.
only diminish the resources of the church, but greatly weaken its power for
good, and expose it to the danger of being carried away more and more from
its true principles by a worldly and fanatical spirit, l
Fifty-seven other men, along with Dr. Hodge, honored
themselves by affixing their names to this paper, which for
its political and ecclesiastical sagacity, its gentlemanly and
Christian spirit, is deserving of everlasting admiration.
Fourteen of the only sixteen Southern commissioners
were among the signers. The other forty-four names in-
cluded, in addition to that of the revered Princeton theolo-
gian, that of the moderator, the Rev. Dr. John T. Backus,
and of the moderator of the preceding Assembly, the Rev.
Dr. John W. Yeomans, who had preached the opening ser-
mon on the text John xviii. 36, " My kingdom is not of
this world " ; and many more names of the wisest and god-
liest men of the whole North.
The best possible foil for Dr. Hodge's protest, one that
makes it shine like a jewel in an ash-bank, was the answer
to it by the Assembly's committee. They *' readily ad-
mitted " that the Assembly's action had political as well
as moral bearings ; and then went on to produce an almost
matchless specimen of pettifogging and sophistical dema-
goguery in the vain attempt to support the Assembly as
just and Scriptural in its conduct. The haters of democ-
racy might find in this instance a very convenient proof of
the folly of the rule by the mere numerical majority in
collusion against principle and intelligence.^ In itself it
would be both interesting and instructive to illustrate
the Machiavellianism of this reply at length, but it would
carry us too far aside from the particular course of events
with which we are directly concerned. We recall our at-
tention, therefore, to the Spring resolutions, and to the
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, pp. 339, 340.
2 See " Minutes of the General Assembly," O. S., 1861, pp. 342-344.
EFFECT OF THE RESOLUTIONS. 331
view taken of them by Dr. Hodge and his party in the
North. That party was not moved by sectionaHsm. Its
judgment was not warped by self-interest. It was not a
secession party. It was not largely a slave-owning party.
The student of history will remember these facts when
studying the reception which Southern Presbyterians gave
the resolutions by the venerable pastor of the Brick
Church. There is no proof of their having been moved
by schism, heresy, or selfishness.
Almost the whole Southern wing of the church regarded
the Assembly's action just as the conservative party in
the North did. They saw : first, that the political ques-
tion had been decided for the whole Presbyterian Church
represented in the Assembly ; second, that the action of
the Assembly in the premises did not only decide the po-
litical question referred to, but made that decision a term
of membership in the church; third, that it was cruel in
its bearings on the Southern members of the church,
making them renounce allegiance either to church or
state ; fourth, that in the political adjudication the church
had been guilty of usurpation of the Redeemer's rights,
and the prostitution of the Redeemer's bride; fifth, that,
finally, the flood-gates of politico-religious syncretism, of
fanaticism, had been thrown open. These things they
saw ; and these things, together with the actual setting up
of the Confederate Government, were the objective causes,
the occasions, of the rise of the Presbyterian Church,
South.
Some of the strongest intellects as well as some of the
most devoted Christian ministers in the whole church were
in the South. They desired a church on whose banner
should be inscribed, ''The SpirituaHty of the Church,"
*' The power of the Church Court as to kind and degree
only what the Word of God as interpreted by the Stand-
332 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
ards of the Church makes it," ** A faithful adherence to
the Constitution of the Church," "The absolute Headship
of Christ in the Church." They wanted a church, and a
better one than that from which they had been virtually
ejected. They wanted a church that looked to her bride-
groom as her very lord, that wore not the skirts of a
prostitute ; a church whose courts ** would never ask what
might be a man's view of the Constitution of the United
States, of the doctrine of State rights, or of any other
poHtical question " ; but '' What does he think of the head-
ship of Christ, of the atonement, of regeneration? is he
willing to adopt sincerely and in their true import our
time-honored standard of doctrine and church order? "^
Such a church as the Old School Presbyterian had been,
but was no longer, a church of their own people, among
whom homogeneity would prevent all retarding friction of
her chariot- wheels as her armies should go forth against
the world. They wanted a church for their own sakes,
their fellows' sakes, and for the sake of truth and God.
In these glorious aspirations and honorable desires we
find the true causes of the existence of the Presbyterian
Church, South. As these causes are to receive fuller
illustration incidentally as we proceed, we shall for the
present dispense with their further elucidation, and pass
on to trace the organization of the church in process, and
then to set forth the completeness of the form of organi-
zation, and its adjustment to its ecclesiastical environment.
The Organization of the Body and its Adjustment to
its Environment. — Most of the Southern Presbyteries —
all, perhaps — had held, as the custom is, their spring meet-
ings prior to the time of the Philadelphia Assembly. But
such of them as had adjourned meetings, or pro re nata
1 See speech of Dr. J. H. Vandyke, in " Concise Records of the Assembly
of St. Louis," 1866, p. 54.
THE SOUTHERN CHURCH ORGANIZED. 333
meetings, on the heel of that Assembly, protested with
various degrees of vigor against the high-handed usurpa-
tion and abhorred degradation of that body. The Pres-
bytery of Memphis, in an adjourned meeting on the 13th
of June, renounced connection with the Assembly for its
unchristian and revolutionary action, and requested all
concurring Presbyteries to meet with them by their com-
missioners, in Memphis, on the third Thursday in May,
1863, foi" the purpose of organizing a General Assembly.
It also suggested to the Presbyteries the advisability of
their calling meetings and appointing delegates to a con-
vention to meet in Atlanta on the 15th of August, *' to con-
sult upon various important matters, especially our benev-
olent operations." This action was immediately followed
by that of the East Alabama Presbytery, which was called
together to consider the matter. It did not secede from
the Assembly, but earnestly protested, and declared that
it would not acquiesce in the Assembly's action. It then
called for a convention of the Presbyteries to meet in
Columbia, S. C, on the Thursday before the second Sun-
day in September, 1861, aiming thus to secure cooperative
action.
On the 9th of July the Presbytery of New Orleans
formally renounced the jurisdiction of the Old Assembly,
ordered that a copy of their action be sent to the South-
ern Presbyteries, and requested them, if they should con-
cur in this action, to send commissioners authorized to
organize an Assembly, to commence its meetings on the
4th of December, 1861, in Augusta, Ga.
About the same time many of the Presbyteries met and
chose delegates to a convention in Atlanta, Ga., during
July. Individuals throughout the church had been calling
for such a convention, as an advisory body. Prominent
ministers in the Synod of Virginia had, on the close of the
334 ^-^^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
Philadelphia Assembly, at once published a circular, invit-
ing ministers and elders in Southern Synods to meet in
convention in Richmond, Va., on the 24th of July. Prom-
inent ministers in the South Carolina Synod early agitated
the calling of such a convention; and Dr. Thornwell, at
least, expressed a preference for the Piedmont region of
North Carolina, and named, specially, Greensboro as a
suitable place. Such a convention was needed to give
harmony of action touching their relation to the Old
Assembly, to the several Presbyteries and Synods, and to
prevent the evils which might arise from a temporary dis-
organization, especially to make some temporary arrange-
ment concerning the benevolent operations of the church.
The upshot of all these calls for a convention was the final
fixing upon Atlanta as the place, and the 15th of August,
1 86 1 , as the time, for a convention of representatives from
the Presbyteries.
The Atlanta Convention met at the time and place ap-
pointed. It was composed of twenty delegates from
eleven Presbyteries, with fourteen corresponding members
from six Presbyteries, and was in session three days. In
reference to the benevolent operations, it suggested and
recommended that the work of education, publication, do-
mestic missions, etc., should be left to the Presbyteries,
Synods, and the Southwestern Advisory Committee of
New Orleans ; *^ but as to foreign missions, the convention
indorsed the temporary plan for conducting this work
which had been devised by certain brethren in Columbia,
S. C, and pledged the support of the Presbyteries repre-
sented in the convention to it."^ In reference to the
action touching their relations to the Old Assembly, the
1 Alexander's "Digest," p. 68. We acknowledge here our indebtedness
to Mr. Alexander for his account of the Atlanta Convention, which we have
freely used in constructing ours.
THE AUGUSTA CONVENTION, 335
convention urged all such Presbyteries as had not re-
nounced the jurisdiction of the Old Assembly to do so,
and urged all the Presbyteries to declare their adherence
and submission to the standards as formerly held, with
the single change of the phrase " Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America" to this form, viz., ** Pres-
byterian Church in the Confederate States of America."
It further urged that these Presbyteries send commis-
sioners to a General Assembly to be held in Augusta,
Ga., on the fourth day of the next December; that Rev.
Dr. Waddel, Rev. Dr. Gray, and Dr. Joseph H. Jones, of
Atlanta, Ga., be a committee on commissions to examine
the credentials of all who should be present ; and that the
respective Synods review the records of the Presbyteries
and confirm the actions herein proposed. Though a con-
vention, this body '' disclaimed the right to determine the
political relations of individuals, or to solve for them polit-
ical questions."
The convention did just what it was intended to do. It
secured substantial unanimity of action touching relations
to the Old Assembly, and touching relations to the stand-
ards, on the part of all the Presbyteries and Synods.
And it gave a certain support to the temporary agencies
of the church until the Assembly should meet and place
them on a stable footing. During the remainder of the
summer and fall forty-seven Presbyteries, each for itself,
dissolved connection with the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
*' This separation," says Dr. Palmer, ** was based in every
case upon the unconstitutional character of the Assem-
bly's legislation. We give the language employed by a
single Presbytery, as showing the common ground upon
which they all stood : Resolved, That in view of the un-
constitutional, Erastian, tyrannical, and virtually exscind^
336 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
ing act of the late General Assembly, sitting at Philadel-
phia in May last, we do hereby, with a solemn protest
against this act, declare, in the fear of God, our connection
with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States to be dissolved."^ These words are
from the minutes of Dr. Palmer's own Presbytery. That
he is correct in setting them forth as containing the com-
mon ground on which all the Presbyteries stood admits of
no doubt. Their sober truth is no more than an adequate
expression of the Assembly's action as seen by clear-
headed and stout-hearted Presbyterians throughout the
South. Before the time for the meeting of the General
Assembly at Augusta, the forty-seven Presbyteries, with
their ten Synods, had been completely organized under
a common constitution, and the Presbyteries had duly
authorized and appointed commissioners to form said
Assembly.
The First General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church, South, convened, according to appointment, on
the 4th of December, 1861. One of the most venerable
ministers present, the Rev. Dr. Francis McFarland, pre-
sided until a regular organization could be effected. On
his motion the Rev. Dr. B. M. Palmer was unanimously
chosen to preach the opening sermon. Dr. Palmer took
for his text Ephesians i. 22, 23 — *' And gave him to be
head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him that filleth all in all." The preacher felt
the responsibility of the moment. What was of greater
importance, he was prepared for it. Endowed with a
force, splendor, and enthusiasm like Homer's, a fiery
logic like Paul's, the speaker had acquired an eloquence
comparable to Burke's. He was habitually an honest
student, and hence a well-furnished preacher on all occa-
» Palmer's " Life of Thornwell," pp. 502, 503.
REV. DR. PALMER'S SERMON, 337
sions. On great occasions he had the mettle in him
which responded readily to the unusual pressure. The
present was a very great occasion. After an exordium
which makes the reader think that Palmer has a right to
preach on the sublime passages of him who, while de-
scribing himself as rude in speech, yet wrote as the lord
thereof, the preacher announced his subject as : ** The su-
preme dominion to which Christ is exalted as the Head
of the churchy and the glory of the church in that rela-
tion, as being at once his body and his fullness.''
The flood-gates of discourse were raised, and the
waters gushed forth. The sermon was a true unfolding
of the great theme announced. There was but little
direct allusion to the situation of the church and the
country. The chief of such passages should be set forth
to the reader. The preacher had been speaking of the
glory which ''surrounds the church," in virtue of the
headship of Christ over it. " The immortal Church of
Christ, which survives all change and never knows decay,
. . . outliving all time, and henceforth counting her years
upon the dial of Eternity." He at length breaks out:
** Do we understand, fathers and brethren, the mission of
the church given us here to execute? It is to lift through-
out the world our testimony for this headship of Christ.
The convocation of this Assembly is in part this testimony.
But a little while since it was attempted in the most
august court of our church to place the crown of our
Lord upon the head of Caesar — to bind that body which
is Christ's fullness to the chariot in which Caesar rides.
The intervening months have sufficiently discovered the
character of that state under whose yoke this church was
summoned to bow the neck in meek obedience; but in
advance of these disclosures, the voice went up through-
out our land in indignant remonstrance against the usurpa-
338 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
tion, In solemn protest against the sacrilege. And now
this pariiament of the Lord's freemen solemnly declares,
that, by the terms of her great charter, none but Jesus
may be King in Zion. Once more, in this distant age
and in these ends of the earth, the church must declare
for the supremacy of her Head, and fling out the conse-
crated ensign with the old inscription, ' For Christ and his
Crown.'"!
The Assembly honored itself by directing the publica-
tion of the sermon in the appendix to the minutes. So
far as we know, it is the only sermon which has been so
published in the history of our church. Dr. Palmer was
made moderator of the Assembly.
The organizatio7i of the churchy including its agencies
for carrying on all the great enterprises of Christiajt
effort, and the orientation of the chnrch before the worlds
and especially before the other churches of Jesus Christ
throughout the earth, was to be the great work of the
Assembly. As soon as the court had been organized
Dr. Thornwell introduced two resolutions, which were
unanimously adopted. They were as follows :
1. That the style and title of this church shall be The Presbyterian Church
in the Confederate States of America.
2. That this Assembly declare, in conformity with the unanimous decision
of our Presbyteries, that the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter
Catechisms, the Forms of Government, the Book of Discipline, and the Di-
rectory of Worship, which together make up the constitution of the Presby-
terian Church in the United States of America, are the constitution of the
Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America ; only substituting
the term " Confederate States" for " United States." 2
In 1865, influenced by the issue of the war, the church
came under the necessity of changing its name somewhat,
and from that time has borne the legal style and title of
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
Confederate States," 1861, p. 71.
2 " Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, p. 7.
ORGANIZATION EFFECTED. 339
"The Presbyterian Church in the United States." Of
changes in the constitution we shall have something to
say in a future chapter.
As one looks over the proceedings of this Assembly,
he observes that though it is but an hour old, it is not
wrapped in swaddling-clothes. In the ordinary routine
work of such a body, it shows no signs of infancy. But
we marvel not at this ; for many of the members are
among the most skillful presbyters who could have been
found in the undivided church. But we do look on with
admiration as this fully grown young giant begins to rig
the ship in which it is to breast the waves and face the
foes of an indefinite future.
One of the first as well as the most notable things
which the Assembly did was to organize a permanent
agency for conducting foreign missions. And as the prin-
ciples of organization involved in the establishment of the
executive committee of foreign missions were applied in
all the executive committees established by the Assembly,
we may with profit bring out somewhat fully this plan
of the Assembly. Nor can this be better done than by
transcribing here the vital parts of the resolutions which
the body passed as a means to the organization of said
committee ; and the vital parts of those touching its at-
titude to the missions committed already by Providence
to its care, and to the unchristian and papal peoples over
the face of the globe.
For the organization of a permanent agency for con-
ducting foreign missions, the following resolutions were
adopted :
Resolved, i. That this General Assembly proceed to appoint an Executive
Committee, with its proper officers, to carry on this work, and that the char-
acter and functions of this committee be comprised in the following articles
as its constitution, viz. :
340 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
Article I. This committee shall be known as the Executive Committee
of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of
America. It shall consist of a secretary, who shall be styled the Secretary of
Foreign Missions, and who shall be the committee's organ of communication
with the Assembly and with all portions of the work intrusted to this com-
mittee ; a treasurer and nine other members, three of whom, at least, shall
be ruling elders or deacons, or private members of the church, all appointed
annually by the General Assembly, and shall be directly amenable to it for
the faithful and efficient discharge of the duties intrusted to its care. Vacan-
cies occurring ad interim it shall fill if necessary.
Art. II. It shall meet once a month, or oftener, if necessary, at the call
of the chairman or secretary. It may enact by-laws for its government, the
same being subject to the revision and approval of the General Assembly.
Art. III. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to take direc-
tion and control of the foreign missionary work, subject to such instructions
as may be given by the General Assembly from time to time ; to appoint
missionaries and assistant missionaries ; to designate their field of labor, and
provide for their support ; to receive the reports of the secretary and treas-
urer, and give such directions in relation to their respective duties as may
seem necessary ; to authorize appropriations and expenditures of money, in-
cluding the salaries of officers ; to communicate to the churches from time to
time such information about the missionary work as may seem important to
be known ; and to lay before the General Assembly from year to year a full
report of the work and of their receipts and expenditures, together with their
books of minutes for examination.!
The cumbrous and Scripturally unwarranted machinery
of boards, as well as voluntary societies, is done away with.
The fifth wheel of the chariot is cast aside ; a simple com-
mittee, directly and immediately responsible to the Gen-
eral Assembly as the Assembly's executive agent, does
the work which had in the Old Assembly been done at
one time by voluntary societies, and later by largely ir-
responsible boards. The Assembly had quietly made a
long stride toward a more Scriptural form.
The Southern Assembly of 1861 did much more than
to frame a good agency for conducting foreign missions.
It betrayed a glorious missionary zeal. The new church
had in its heart the Saviour's last command to the nascent
1 "Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, p. 15.
MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS. 34 1
church of the Apostles. Already, during the summer of
1 86 1 and before the Atlanta Convention, Dr. J. Leighton
Wilson and other brethren in Columbia, S. C, had called
the attention of the church throughout the Confederacy
to the demands of the Presbyterian missions among the
tribes of the Indian Territory, and had raised and dis-
persed about four thousand dollars. After the convention
Dr. Wilson, with its indorsement, continued his efforts to
support these missions, and also made a personal visit to
that interesting but perturbed field. When the Assembly
at Augusta met about twenty thousand dollars had been
expended in the support of the mission since May by the
Southern Presbyterians. Dr. Wilson read a report of his
work as provisional secretary. On occasion of that report
the Assembly passed a series of resolutions, the follow-
ing excerpt from which will at once interest the reader
and enlighten him further as to the aims of the new-born
church toward missions :
Resolved, 2. That the Assembly accepts, with joyful gratitude to God, the
care of these missions among our southwestern Indian tribes, the Choctaws,
Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees, thus thrown upon them by
his providence : missions whose whole history has been signalized by a de-
gree of success attending few other modern missions ; to a people comprising
near seventy thousand souls, to whom we are bound by obligations of special
tenderness and strength, and whose spiritual interest must ever be dear to the
Christians of this land. . . . And the Assembly assures those people, and the
beloved missionaries who have so long and successfully labored among them,
of our fixed purpose, under God, to sustain and carry forward the blessed
work, whose foundations have been so nobly and deeply laid. We therefore
decidedly approve of the recommendation of the report, that six new mission-
aries be sent to this field speedily, two of them to commence a new mission
among the Cherokees, and that a few small boarding-schools be established
with the special design of raising up a native agency.
3. That in the striking fact that the same upheaving and overturning that
have called us into existence as a distinct organization, and shut us out from
present access to distant nations, have also laid thus upon our hearts and hands
these interesting missions, with their fifteen stations and twelve ordained
missionaries and sixteen hundred communicants, so that, at the very moment
342 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
of commencing our separate existence, we find them forming in fact an or-
ganic part of our body ; and also in the gratifying promptitude with which
our church has advanced to their support — the Assembly recognizes most
gratefully the clear foreshadowing of the divine purpose to make our beloved
church an eminently missionary church, and a heart-stirring call upon all her
people to engage in this blessed work with new zeal and self-denial.
4. The Assembly further rejoices to know that there are a few of the sons
of oui* Southern Zion who are laboring in distant lands, and approves heartily
of the action of the committee in forwarding funds for the support of the
missions in which they are engaged, trusting that the committee to be ap-
pointed will, as soon as possible, ascertain the facts on the subject necessary
to their future guidance ; and takes this occasion, hence, to direct the longing
eyes of the whole church to those broad fields where Satan reigns almost
undisturbed — to India, Siam, China, Japan, and especially to Africa and
South America, which have peculiar claims upon us, as fields where we are
soon to be called to win glorious victories for our King, if we prove faithful ;
and solemnly charges them that now while in the convulsions that are shak-
ing the earth we hear the tread of his coming footsteps, to take the kingdom
bought with his blood, they should be preparing to meet him with their whole
hearts and their largest offerings.
5. Finally, the General Assembly desires distinctly and deliberately to
inscribe on our church's banner, as she now first unfurls it to the world, in
immediate connection with the headship of our Lord, his last command: "Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature ; " regarding
this as the great end of her organization, and obedience to it as the indis-
pensable condition of her Lord's promised presence, and as one great compre-
hensive object, a proper conception of whose vast magnitude and grandeur
is the only thing which, in connection with the love of Christ, can ever
sufficiently arouse her energies and develop her resources so as to cause her
to carry on, with the vigor and efficiency which true fealty to her Lord de-
mands, those other agencies necessary to her internal growth and home
prosperity. The claims of this cause ought therefore to be kept constantly
before the minds of the people and pressed upon their consciences. The
ministers and ruling elders and deacons and Sabbath-school teachers, and
especially the parents, ought, and are enjoined by the Assembly, to give par-
ticular attention to all those for whose religious teaching they are responsible,
in training them to feel a deep interest in this Avork, to form habits of syste-
matic benevolence, and to feel and respond to the claims of Jesus upon them
for personal service in the field.'
Such are the resolutions adopted by the Augusta As-
sembly, as expressing its attitude toward foreign missions.
There is an exalted heroism in them, a sublimity of faith
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly of 1861," pp. 16, 17.
COMMITTEE OF DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 343
to which history furnishes few parallels. Surrounded by
** a cordon of armies," in a country itself on the point of
being one of the world's theaters of most terrific war, the
church quietly looks forth on the world as its field, and
quietly, fearlessly, and earnestly prepares for its present
and its future labors. Sacred Writ tells us that in the
time of Zedekiah, when the Babylonian army was besieg-
ing Jerusalem and on the point of taking it, Jeremiah,
having been shut up in prison for having predicted the
city's overthrow, said : " The word of the Lord came
unto me, saying. Buy the field that is in Anathoth, for
the right of redemption is thine to buy it; " Jeremiah
bought the field and weighed out the money, seventeen
shekels of silver. His heroism was mightier than that
of kings. His faith assured him that there was light be-
yond the clouds. This church in vision pierces the con-
fines and the gloom of war; and, true to the principles
which God had given her grace to see, prepares for their
exemplification as God shall give her opportunity.
The Assembly's work relating to home missions is of a
piece with that concerning foreign missions. The con-
stitution of the '' Executive Committee of Domestic Mis-
sions," as it was called, is mutatis imitandis altogether
** similar in its provisions to that adopted for the Execu-
tive Committee of Foreign Missions"^ save in one impor-
tant particular, to which we will subsequently return.
The work of this committee had been carried on dur-
ing the interregnum by the Southwestern Advisory Com-
mittee. The Advisory Committee had been created by
an order of the General Assembly of 1859, and had gone
into active operation in November of that year. It had
presented two annual reports to the Old Assembly,
through the parent board. On March i, 1861, it had a
1 Alexander's " Digest," p. 127.
344 ^-^-^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
balance in its treasury of $7729.55 ; it had received be-
tween March and November $4490.37, having thus, dur-
ing those eight months, $12,219.92. About forty mis-
sionaries were, on November ist, in commission, which
was about the number in commission at the meeting
of the Philadelphia Assembly. Through the good provi-
dence of the blessed Master and Head, amidst the terrible
convulsions of the times the work of missions had moved
on without a jar. One cannot '' fail to notice the wonder-
ful manner in which God prepared and equipped the
Southern Presbyterian Church for the storm," ** in the
creation of this agency, without which domestic mis-
sions upon her extended frontier must have been brought
abruptly to a close, and many faithful laborers, without a
warning, cast loose upon the world, without visible pros-
pect of support for themselves and their families. "^ This
committee surrendered its trusts to the Assembly's Execu-
tive Committee of Domestic Missions, according to its own
proffer and the Assembly's action.
For the time being the Assembly enlarged the number
of duties to be rendered by the Committee of Domestic
Missions. In framing the constitution of this committee,
the Assembly had passed one more resolution than in that
of Foreign Missions — a resolution commending to its par-
ticular attention a special class of the greater class of peo-
ple for whom the committee must labor. The Assembly
had resolved :
That the great field of missionary operation among our colored population
falls more immediately under the care of the Committee of Domestic Mis-
sions ; and that the committee be urged to give it serious and constant atten-
tion, and the Presbyteries to cooperate with the committee in securing pastors
and missionaries for this field.2
1 " Minutes of the Assembly of 1861," pp. 49, 50.
2 Ibid.y p. 20.
OTHER COMMITTEES ORGANIZED. 345
Two days later the Assembly resolved :
That in view of the service rendered by the action of the Church Extension
Committee, as organized under the Old Assembly, and the importance of
continuing to extend aid to the feeble churches in the erection of church
edifices, the duties of that committee be put in charge of the Committee of
Domestic Missions, until otherwise ordered by the General Assembly.!
The reader of history has remarked over and over that
a time of war is a time unfavorable to religious living and
achievement. The reader of the church records in the
South, 1861-65, is driven to the conclusion that though
stout defenders of their political principles, they were
stouter still in defensive and offensive Christian warfare.
The Executive Committee of Education was also con-
stituted by our Assembly. It solemnly reaffirmed ** the
deliverances made in its former connection concerning the
responsibility that rests on the church to secure and main-
tain for itself a pious, gifted, and learned ministry." It
appointed an executive committee to aid candidates for
the gospel ministry who needed assistance, and formed a
constitution for said committee. Its constitution was as
nearly like those which have already been illustrated as
its nature and ends allowed.
An Executive Committee of Publication ^ also with a
constitution, the exact analogue of those of the other
agencies, was constituted. Important as this branch of
church work is, as the nature of the work is so well
known it will not prove interesting or instructive to dwell
longer upon it.
The following mode of electing these several committees
was determined upon by the Assembly :
I. The Assembly's standing committees shall, on making their respective
reports, present nominations for the members and officers of their respective
executive committees for the ensuing year.
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly," i86i, p. 35.
346 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
2. The presentations of these respective nominations shall not preclude
any additional nominations which any member of the Assembly may choose
to make.
3. The election of said committee shall not take place until at least one day
after the nominations are made.
4. In all cases a majority of the votes of the Assembly shall be necessary
to an election. 1
Thus the Assembly kept its own hand on the helm of
all its great enterprises. It had no irresponsible societies
to do its work, no barely responsible boards.
One of the most interesting scenes in this Assembly
was witnessed on the discussion of the report of the com-
mittee on ** The Propriety of Securing a Charter for the
Assembly." This report contained the draft of a bill to
incorporate the trustees of the General Assembly. The
peculiar feature of this instrument is contained in its fourth
section, which reads as follows :
Be it further enacted, That whenever the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church in the Confederate States of America shall establish any com-
mittees, agencies, or boards, for the purposes of education, publication,
foreign and domestic missions, church extension, or any other committees,
agencies, or boards connected with the benevolent purposes and operations
of the said Assembly, any of the said committees, agencies, or boards shall
be held and deemed to be branches of this corporation ; subject always to the
review, control, and power of the said General Assembly ; and when any
gift, conveyance, or transfer of estate in any wise, any devise, or bequest
shall be made to " the trustees of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the Confederate States of America," for either of the committees,
agencies, or boards of the General Assembly, it shall be good and effectual
to transfer the estate, property, or thing in as full and as perfect a manner as
if the said committee, agency, or board had been especially incorporated with
powers to take and to hold the same, and no misnomer or misconception of
the said corporation shall defeat any gift, grant, devise, or bequest to the
corporation, wherever the interest shall appear sufficiently upon the face of
the gift, grant, devise, or bequest. 2
The aim in this was *' to keep our boards or committees
dependent upon and responsible to the General Assembly ;
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, p. 22.
2 Ibid., 1 86 1, pp. 31-33.
"ADDRESS TO THE CHURCHES:' 347
to have an organization broad enough to embrace all our
undertakings; to keep them so bound together that the
Creator may be above the creature ; to have the church
present the view of the vine and the branches."^
This paper, though scrutinized with the keenest insight
and amended before its final adoption, was received with
the greatest satisfaction. It was felt that the biblical
idea of polity was being further approximated. This bill
was never enacted, but in substance was wrought into
the charter of 1866, granted by the State of North Caro-
lina. But the high- water mark of interest was reached as
early as the first Saturday, in the hearing of the ''Address
to the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth,"
prepared by the committee of which Dr. J. H. Thornwell
was the chairman. In this letter the church was trying to
let the world look on its orientatio7i. It aimed to show
the other churches its own raison de etre, and its aims
toward God and man. It is a paper of which any church
might be proud. As we reread it, again and again re-
marking its luminous precision of thought and language,
its broad and deep charity for all the Lord's own, and the
profoundly sanctified spirit that runs through it all, the
impression comes with increasing strength that in that
single paper is enough to justify the separate existence of
the Southern Presbyterian Church. The church is the
pillar and ground of the truth or nothing. It is to be
doubted whether any other church in existence was more
capable of setting forth the truth on the questions in de-
bate than this church showed itself in that letter. Such
a document should be read by every student who would
know the origin of the Presbyterian Church, South. Our
limits admit only of some excerpts, which, however, have
been so selected as to give a fair notion of the address as
1 " Minutes of the General Assembly," 1861, pp. 31-35.
348 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
a whole, so far as such a thing can be done. They are as
follows :
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States
of America to all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the earth,
greeting : grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you.
Dearly beloved Brethren : It is probably known to you that the
Presbyteries and Synods in the Confederate States, which were formerly
in connection with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America, have renounced the jurisdiction of that body, and
dissolved the ties which bound them ecclesiastically with their brethren of the
North. This act of separation left them without any formal union among
themselves. But as they are one in faith and order, and still adhere to their
old standards, measures were promptly adopted for giving expression to their
unity, by the organization of a supreme court, upon the model of the one
whose authority they had just relinquished. Commissioners, duly appointed,
from all the Presbyteries of these Confederate States, met accordingly, in the
city of Augusta, on the fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and then and there proceeded to con-
stitute the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate
States of America. . . .
In thus taking its place among sister churches of this and other countries,
it seems proper that it should set forth the causes which have impelled it to
separate from the church of the North, and to indicate a general view of the
course which it feels it incumbent upon it to pursue in the new circumstances
in which it is placed.
We should be sorry to be regarded by our brethren in any part of the
world as guilty of schism. We are not conscious of any purpose to rend the
body of Christ. . . .
We have separated from our brethren of the North as Abraham separated
from Lot — because we are persuaded that the interests of true religion will
be more effectually subserved by two independent churches, under the cir-
cumstances in which the two countries are placed, than by one united body.
I. In the first place, the course of the last Assembly, at Philadelphia,
conclusively shows that if we should remain together the pohtical questions
which divide us as citizens will be obtruded on our church courts, and dis-
cussed by Christian ministers and elders with all the acrimony, bitterness,
and rancor with which such questions are usually discussed by men of the
world. Our Assembly would present a mournful spectacle of strife and de-
bate. . . .
Two nations, under any circumstances except those of perfect homogeneous-
ness, cannot be united in one church without the rigid exclusion of all civil
and secular questions from its halls. Where the countries differ in their
customs and institutions, and view each other with an eye of jealousy and
SEPARATION DEFENDED, 349
rivalry, if national feelings are permitted to enter the church courts there
must be an end of harmony and peace. . . . An Assembly composed of
representatives from two such countries could have no security for peace
except in a steady, uncompromising adherence to the Scriptural principle,
that it would know no man after the flesh ; that it would abolish the dis-
tinctions of barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, and recognize nothing but the
new creature in Christ Jesus. . . .
The only conceivable condition, therefore, upon which the church of the
North and of the South could remain together as one body, with any pros-
pect of success, is the rigorous exclusion of the questions and passions of
the forum from its halls of debate. This is what always ought to be done.
The provinces of church and state are perfectly distinct, and one has no right
to usurp the jurisdiction of the other. The state is a natural institute, founded
in the constitution of man as moral and social, and designed to realize the
idea of justice. It is the society of rights. The church is a supernatural
institute, founded in the facts of redemption, and is designed to realize the
idea of grace. It is the society of the redeemed. The state aims at social
order ; the church, at spiritual holiness. The state looks to the visible and
outward ; the church is concerned for the invisible and inward. The badge
of the state's authority is the sword, by which it becomes a terror to evil-
doers, and a praise to them that do well ; the badge of the church is the keys
by which it opens and shuts the kingdom of heaven, according as men are
believing or impenitent. The power of the church is exclusively spiritual ;
that of the state includes the exercise of force. The constitution of the church
is a divine revelation ; the constitution of the state must be determined by
human reason and the course of providential events. The church has no
right to construct or modify a government for the state, and the state has no
right to frame a creed or polity for the church. They are as planets moving
in different orbits, and unless each is confined to its own track, the conse-
quences may be as disastrous in the moral world as collision of different
spheres in the world of matter. It is true that there is a point at which their
respective jurisdictions seem to meet — in the idea of duty. But even duty is
viewed by each in very different lights. The church enjoins it as obedience
to God, and the state enforces it as safeguard of order. But there can be no
collision unless one or the other blunders as to the things that are materially
right. When the state makes wicked laws contradicting the eternal principles
of rectitude, the church is at liberty to testify against them, and humbly peti-
tion that they may be repealed. In like manner, if the church becomes sedi-
tious and a disturber of the peace the state has a right to abate the nuisance.
In ordinary cases, however, there is not likely to be a collision. Among a
Christian people there is little difference of opinion as to the radical distinc-
tions of right and wrong. The only serious danger is where moral duty is
conditioned upon a political question. Under the pretext of inculcating duty,
the church may usurp the power to determine the question which conditions
it, and that is precisely what she is debarred from doing. The condition
350 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. ii.
must be given. She must accept it from the state, and then her own course
is clear. If Caesar is your master, then pay tribute to him ; but whether the
if holds — whether Caesar is your master or not, whether he ever had any
just authority, whether he now retains it or has forfeited it — these are points
which the church has no commission to adjudicate.
It was ardently desired that the sublime spectacle might be presented of
one church upon earth combining in cordial fellowship and holy love — the
disciples of Jesus in different and even hostile lands. But alas for the weak-
ness of man! these golden visions were soon dispelled. The first thing
which roused our Presbyteries to look the question of separation seriously in
the face was the course of the Assembly in venturing to determine, as a court
of Jesus Christ, which it did by necessary implication, the true interpreta-
tion of the Constitution of the United States as to the kind of government it
intended to form. A political theory was, to all intents and purposes, pro-
pounded which made secession a crime, the seceding States rebellious, and
the citizens who obeyed them traitors. We say nothing here as to the right-
eousness or unrighteousness of these decrees. What we maintain is, that,
whether right or wrong, the church had no right to make them — she tran-
scended her sphere, and usurped the duties of the state. . . .
We frankly admit that the mere unconstitutionality of the proceedings of
the last Assembly is not, in itself considered, a sufficient ground of separa-
tion. It is the consequence of these proceedings which makes them so offen-
sive. It is the door which they open for the worst passions of human nature
in the deliberation of church courts. . . . For the sake of peace, therefore,
for Christian charity, for the honor of the church, and for the glory of God,
we have been constrained, as much as in us lies, to remove all occasion of
offense. We have quietly separated, and we are grateful to God that, while
leaving for the sake of peace, we leave it with the humble consciousness that
we ourselves have never given occasion to break the peace. We have never
confounded Caesar and Christ ; we have never mixed the issues of this world
with the weighty matters that properly belong to us as citizens of the kingdom
of God.
2. Though the immediate occasion of separation was the course of the
General Assembly at Philadelphia in relation to the Federal Government and
the war, yet there is another ground on which the independent organization
of the Southern Church can be amply and Scripturally maintained.
If it is desirable that each nation should contain a separate and independent
church, the Presbyteries of the Confederate States need no apology for bow-
ing to the decree of Providence, which in withdrawing their country from the
government of the United States has at the same time determined that they
should withdraw from the church of their fathers. It is not that they have
ceased to love, not that they have abjured its ancient principles, or forgotten
its glorious history. . . .
The antagonism of Northern and Southern sentiments on the subject of
slavery lies at the root of all the difficulties which have resulted in the
THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY, 35 1
dismemberment of the Federal Union and involved us in the horrors of an
unnatural war. The Presbyterian Church in the United States has been en-
abled by the divine grace to pursue, for the most part, an eminently con-
servative, because a thoroughly Scriptural, policy in relation to this delicate
question. It has planted itself upon the Word of God, and utterly refused
to make slaveholding a sin, or non-slaveholding a term of communion. But
though both sections are agreed as to this general principle, it is not to be
disguised that the North exercises a deep and settled antipathy to slavery
itself, while the South is equally zealous in its defense. Recent events can
have no other effect than to confirm the antipathy on one hand, and to
strengthen the attachment on the other. . . .
And here we may venture to lay before the Christian world our views as a
church upon the subject of slavery. We beg a candid hearing. In the first
place, we would have it distinctly understood that, in our ecclesiastical capac-
ity, we are neither the friends nor the foes of slavery — that is to say, we have
no commission either to propagate or abolish it. The policy of its existence
or non-existence is a question which exclusively belongs to the state. We
have no right, as a church, to enjoin it as a duty or condemn it as a sin. Our
business is with the duties that spring from the relations — the duties of the
master on the one hand, and of the slave on the other. These duties we are
to proclaim and enforce with spiritual sanctions. The social, civil, political
problems connected with this great subject transcend our sphere, as God has
not intrusted to his church the organization of society, the construction of
governments, nor the allotment of individuals to their various stations. The
church has as much right to preach to the monarchies of Europe and the
despotisms of Asia the doctrines of republican equality, as to preach to the
government of the South the extirpation of slavery. This position is im-
pregnable, unless it can be shown that slavery is a sin. Upon every other
hypothesis, it is so clearly a question for the state that the proposition would
never for a moment have been doubted had there not been a foregone conclu-
sion in relation to its moral character. Is slavery, then, a sin?
In answering this question, as a church, let it be distinctly borne in mind
that the only rule of judgment is the written Word of God. The church
knows nothing of the intuitions of reason, or the deductions of philosophy,
except those reproduced in the sacred canon. She has a positive constitution
in the Holy Scriptures, and has no right to utter a single syllable upon any
subject, except as the Lord puts it into her mouth. She is founded, in other
words, on express revelation. The question, then, is brought within a narrow
compass : Do the Scriptures, directly or indirectly, condemn slavery as a sin?
If they do not, the dispute is ended, for the church, without forfeiting her
character, dares not go beyond them. Now, we venture to assert that if men
had drawn their conclusions upon the subject only from the Bible, it would
no more have entered into any human head to denounce slavery as a sin, than
to denounce monarchy, aristocracy, or poverty. The truth is, men have
listened to what they falsely considered as primitive intuitions, or as necessary
352 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. n.
deductions from primitive cognitions, and then have gone to the Bible to
confirm the crotchets of their vain philosophy.
We have assumed no new attitude. We stand where the Church of God
has always stood, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, from
Christ to the Reformers, and from the Reformers to ourselves. We stand
upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being
the chief cornerstone. Shall we be excluded from the fellowship of our
brethren in other lands because we dare not depart from the Charter of our
faith? Shall we be branded with the stigma of reproach because we cannot
consent to corrupt the Word of God to suit the intuition of an infidel philos-
ophy? Shall our names be pointed out as evil and the finger of scorn be
pointed at us because we utterly refuse to break our communion with Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Moses, David, and Isaiah, with apostles, proph-
ets, and martyrs, with all the noble army of confessors who have gone to
glory from slaveholding countries and from a slaveholding church without
ever dreaming that they had lived in mortal sin by conniving at slavery in the
midst of them? Others, if they please, may spend their time in declaiming
on the tyranny of earthly masters ; it will be our aim to resist the real tyrants
which oppress the soul — Sin and Satan. These are the foes against whom
we shall find it employment enough to wage a successful war — and to this
holy war it is the purpose of our church to devote itself with redoubled energy.
We feel that the souls of our slaves are a solemn trust, and we shall strive
to present them faultless before the presence of God.
Indeed, as we contemplate their condition in the Southern States and con-
trast it with that of their fathers before them, and that of their brethren in
the present day in their native land, we cannot but accept it as a gracious
Providence that they have been brought in such numbers to our shores, and
redeemed from the bondage of barbarism and sin. Slavery to them has cer-
tainly been overruled for the greatest good. . . .
As to the endless declamations about human rights, we have only to say
that human rights are not a fixed, but a fluctuating quantity. Their sum is
not the same in any two nations on the globe. The rights of Englishmen
are one thing, the rights of Frenchmen another. There is a minimum with-
out which a man cannot be responsible ; there is a maximum which expresses
the highest degree of civilization and of Christian culture. The education of
the species consists in its ascent along this line. Now when it is said that
slavery is inconsistent with human rights, we crave to understand what point
in this line is the slave conceived to occupy. There are, no doubt, many
rights which belong to other men — to Englishmen, to Frenchmen, to his
master, for example — which are denied to him. But is he fit to possess
them? Has God qualified him to meet the responsibilities which their pos-
session necessarily implies? His place in the scale is determined by his
competency to fulfill its duties. There are other rights which he certainly
possesses, without which he could be neither human nor accountable. Before
slavery can be charged with doing him injustice it must be shown that the
THE ENDS PROPOSED. 353
minimum which falls to his lot at the bottom of the line is out of proportion
to his capacity and culture — a thing which can never be done by abstract
speculation.
To avoid the suspicion of conscious weakness of our cause when contem-
plated from the side of pure speculation, we advert for a moment to those
pretended intuitions which stamp the reprobation of humanity upon this
ancient and hoary institution. We admit that there are primitive principles
of morals which lie at the root of human consciousness. But the question is,
how are we to distinguish them? The subjective feeling of certainty is no
adequate criterion, as it is equally felt in reference to crotchets and hereditary
prejudices. The very point is to know when this certainty indicates a prim-
itive cognition, and when it does not. There must, therefore, be some eter-
nal test, and whatever cannot abide that test has no authority as a primary
truth. That test is an inward necessity of thought, which in all minds at the
proper stage of maturity is absolutely universal. Whatever is universal is
natural. We are willing that slavery should be tried by this standard. We
are willing to abide by the testimony of the race, and if man, as man, has
everywhere condemned it — if all human laws have prohibited it as a crime —
if it stands in the same category with malice, murder, and theft — then we are
willing, in the name of humanity, to renounce it, and to renounce it forever.
But what if the overwhelming majority of mankind have approved it? What
if philosophers and statesmen have justified it, and the laws of all nations
acknowledged it — what then becomes of these luminous intuitions? They
are an ignis fatnus, mistaken for a star.
We have now, brethren, in a brief compass — for the nature of this address
admits only an outline — opened to you our whole hearts upon this delicate
and vexed subject. We have concealed nothing. We have sought to con-
ciliate no sympathy by appeals to your charity. We have tried our cause by
the Word of God ; and though protesting against its authority to judge in a
question concerning the duty of the church, we have not refused to appear at
the tribunal of reason. Are we not right, in view of all the preceding con-
siderations, in remitting the social, civil, and political problems connected
with slavery in the state?
The ends which we propose to accomplish as a church are the same as
those which are proposed by every other church. To proclaim God's truth
as a witness to the nations ; to gather his elect from the four corners of the
earth ; and, through the Word, ministries, and ordinances, to train them for
eternal life — is the great business of his people. The only thing that will be
at all peculiar to us is the manner in which we shall attempt to discharge our
duty. In almost every department of labor, except the pastoral care of con-
gregations, it has been usual for the church to resort to societies more or less
closely connected with itself, and yet logically and really distinct. It is our
purpose to rely upon the regular organs of our government, and executive
agencies directly and immediately responsible to them. We wish to make
the church not merely a superintendent, but an agent. We wish to develop
354 ^-^-^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
the idea that the congregation of believers, as visibly organized, is the very
society or corporation which is divinely called to do the work of the Lord.
We shall therefore endeavor to do what has never yet been adequately done
— bring out the energies of our Presbyterian system of government. From
the session to the Assembly we shall strive to enlist all of our courts, as
courts, in the department of Christian effort. We are not ashamed to con-
fess that we are intensely Presbyterian. We embrace all other denomina-
tions in the arms of Christian fellowship and love, but our own scheme of
government we humbly believe to be according to the pattern shown in the
mount, and, by God's grace, we propose to put its efificiency to the test.
Brethren, we have done. We have told you who we are, and what we
are. We greet you in the ties of Christian brotherhood. We desire to culti-
vate peace and charity with all our fellow-Christians throughout the world.
We invite to ecclesiastical communion all who maintain our principles of faith
and order.
And now we commend you to God and the Word of his grace. We de-
voutly pray that the whole Catholic Church may be afresh baptized with the
Holy Ghost, and that she may be speedily stirred up to give the Lord no
rest until he establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, l
The scene ** which was enacted at the moment of the
subscription of this letter will be forgotten," says an elo-
quent participant, " by none who witnessed it. Read, and
read again, amid the solemn stillness of an audience whose
emotions are hushed with awe, it was finally adopted and
laid on the moderator's table ; when, one by one, the
members came silently forward and signed the instrument
with their names. We were carried back to those stirring
times in Scottish story when the Solemn League and
Covenant was spread upon the gravestones at the Gray
Friars' Churchyard, and Christian heroes pricked their
veins, that with the red blood they might sign their alle-
giance to the kingdom and crown of Jesus Christ, their
Lord and Head."^
The Distinctive Principles of the Church at First. —
We have now passed in review the more important acts
1 For this letter in full see " Minutes of 1861," pp. 51-60; Alexander's
" Digest," pp. 369-380; " Distinctive Principles," pp. 6-25.
2 Palmer's " Life of Thornwell," p.
CLERICAL AND LAY LEADERS. 355
of the Constituting Assembly. Observing the fabric set
up as a completed whole, we may remark its distinctive
principles, viz. : First, witnessing for the non-secular
character of the church and the headship of Christ, or, in
other words, for a strict adherence to the constitution.
This explains the church's rise. This was the church's
great and inspiring mission. Second, the complete or-
ganization of the church, obviating the necessity of boards
and societies. The Southern Presbyterian Church is one
of the most completely organized of all the churches of
God. The church itself is its own home missionary
society, its own foreign missionary society, its own educa-
tion society, etc. It attends to the work itself which God
gave it to do. Herein it has been a pattern not without
effect to other churches. The mother-church from which
the Southern Church came has wisely imitated to a certain
degree the daughter, in turning her boards into virtual
commissions.
TJie dignity of the constituting body of this first Assem-
bly was very great. The writer of the '* Address to the
Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth " was the
luminary of the body — a mental and moral giant — but
the Assembly was as a whole an able and godly body.
A glance at the roll of commissioners shows that they
were no mean men. Running down the roll of ministers,
we find the names of Dr. John H. Bocock, Dr. Wm. H.
Foote, Dr. Joseph R. Wilson, Dr. C. C. Jones, Dr. John
N. Waddel, Dr. James A. Lyon, Dr. Drury Lacy, Dr. R.
H. Morrison, Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, Dr. John B. Adger,
Dr. D. McNeil Turner, Dr. Theodoric Pryor, Dr. Francis
McFarland, Dr. James B. Ramsey. Among the elders
we note the names of W. P. Webb, T. C. Perrin, W. L.
Mitchell, Job Johnston, J. G. Sheppard, J. T. Swayne, J. D.
Armstrong, Charles Phillips. Many other names of great
356 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. ii.
dignity and reputation might have been added to each of
these lists. And these were no more than a fair sample
of the Southern Church. The Synod of Virginia could
have mustered an abler body than the one we have been
considering.
Whether we look at the causes of the existence of the
Presbyterian Church, South, at the perfection of her or-
ganization, at the orientation of herself in the theological
cosmos, at her distinctive principles, or, in fine, at the dig-
nity of her members, we are irresistibly led to a cortviction
of a surpassing excellence in her beginning, and prophesy
thereof in her end.
CHAPTER III.
THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH AND DEVELOPMENT
OF HER AGENCIES TO THE PRESENT.
We propose to set forth in this chapter the numerical
increase of the church, and to account for the rapidity of
this increase. We shall also illustrate the development of
the various agencies of the church, including foreign mis-
sions, home missions in its various branches, education,
and publication ; explaining, as we may be able, the slow or
rapid progress of each respectively, and remarking on any
change of attitude of any particular agency toward the
General Assembly. We shall then consider the general
posture toward herself in which the General Assembly
holds the agencies in common. Finally, on the ground of
its connection with our subject by contrast, we shall advert
to *' voluntary societies " in the church.
The Numerical Increase of the Church.
In thirty-two years, the devastation and desolation of
war and ** reconstruction " to the contrary nevertheless,
the Southern Presbyterian Church has much more than
doubled itself. It has added three to the original number
of Synods, there being thirteen at present. The number
of its Presbyteries has gone up from 47 to 72, an increase
of more than fifty per cent, of the original number. It
has as many ministers as in 1861, and about eighty per
cent, more, having now 1270; as many churches and one
hundred and sixty per cent, more — the present number of
357
358 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
churches is 2652. There are two and a half times as
many members as in 1861, and more. Its contributions
to foreign missions and to home missions are at least four
times as large, and it has kept pace in developing the
other departments of church enterprise. The church has
made this rapid advance in spite of the fact that between
1866 and 1870 it suffered a great exodus of its colored
communicants, 10,000 perhaps, who betook themselves,
for the most part, to the organizations which the Northern
Presbyterian Church had begun to establish among the
freedmen. It has made this growth in spite of most ad-
verse financial and political conditions, and in a wide and
sparsely settled territory, where there were no great cen-
ters of population, and which had suffered the spoliation
of war. Few churches can show an equal growth. It is
extraordinary. It may be justly claimed as one of the
remarkable phenomena of modern church history.
This growth, under the circumstances, eloquently illus-
trates the words of the Psalmist who cried out : '' It is
good for me that I have been afiflicted, that I might learn
thy statutes."^
But while acknowledging the blessing of affliction rightly
received, we shall find it useful to inquire into the several
proximate and specific causes of this rapid growth. These
causes seem to be :
First, the great esophageal porrectio7is of our church in
the presence of any ecclesiastical minnows which may be
assimilated into good strict Presbyterians. The Presby-
terian Church, South, has absorbed into ecclesiastical union
with herself a good many smaller bodies which once occu-
pied more or less of her present territory, viz. : the Inde-
pendent Presbyterian Church (1863), the United Synod
of the South (1864), the Presbytery of Patapsco (1867),
1 Psalm cxix. 72.
REVIVAL METHODS. 359
the Alabama Presbytery of the Associate Reformed
Church about the same time, the Synod of Kentucky
(1869), the Associated Reformed Presbytery of Kentucky
(1870), and the Synod of Missouri (1874). The union
with these churches brought in about 282 ministers, 490 or
more churches, and 35,600 communicants. Thus is ex-
plained in part the church's rapid growth.
Second, the e^iergetic use of the evangelistic arm of the
church's service. The Southern Presbyterian Church is
not unfrequently stigmatized as ** orthodox." She un-
doubtedly holds to a strong and thorough-going Calvin-
ism and to a rather ** high church " Presbyterianism. In
the later thirties of this century the Old School party won
the victory over the New School only by virtue of an
almost *' sohd South." And since the division of the Old
School in 1 86 1 the Southern Church is supposed to have
strengthened in her Calvinism, and in her tendency to-
ward a belief in a jure divino form of church govern-
ment, rather than to have either declined or stood still.
She does not object to being regarded as orthodox in
the sense of steadfastly upholding her well-known con-
stitution. On the contrary, she delights in the charac-
terization.
But ** orthodoxy " and deadness of spiritual life have
often been conjoined in history — so often as to have pro-
duced the current impression that one must look for a
dead church in one that makes the claim of being ortho-
dox. The impression, however, is very superficial. If
there is any power, by its beauty, purity, charm, and
magnetism, in truth to quicken, attract, sanctify, hold,
and consecrate, then as " orthodoxy " approaches the
truth, contrary to this shallow supposition as to the con-
nection between ** orthodoxy " and *' deadness," we expect
the truly orthodox church to be first in its power to win
360 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. in.
to genuine Christianity all over whom the truth has any
power.
Whether the Southern Presbyterian Church is truly
orthodox it is not our present concern to settle. Her
well-wishers have the pleasure of reflecting that her '' or-
thodoxy " is in no sense stifling. She has shown an evan-
gelical power which to-day is making her, in spite of her
modest dimensions, one of the observed of American
churches.
The Assembly of 1866 enjoined upon every Presbytery
" to seek out and set apart a minister to the work of the
evangelist for its own bounds, to take the superintendence
of its vacant congregations wherever practicable " ; and
wherever such a course should be impracticable, '' to ap-
portion such congregations among its ministerial members
for the same object, so that every congregation and all
freed people " should *' enjoy the pastoral oversight of
some minister in their assemblies."^
This injunction expresses the Assembly's attitude, in
general, toward this department of church work, main-
tained until the present. In 1886 the Assembly adopted
a report emphasizing the importance of evangelistic work,
and reminding the churches (a) *' that Presbyterianism
cannot accomplish its mission unless it become more ag-
gressive ; {b) that constant aggressiveness — in other words,
preaching the gospel in the regions beyond — is one great
mission of the church; that preaching the gospel to the
poor is the distinguishing characteristic of the true
church. "2
The Presbyteries and churches, as they had ability and
grace, responded to the Assembly's resolutions by striv-
ing to work them out in life. True, the church has never
1 " Minutes of 1866," p. 36.
2 " Minutes of the Assembly of 1886," p. 44.
PASTORAL WORK. 36 1
been satisfied with the results secured in the way of
effort; but handsome efforts have been put forth. If
the Assembly's evangelistic enterprises have been allowed
to languish, many of the Presbyteries and Synods have
prosecuted presbyterial and synodical evangelization with
great, if somewhat selfish, enthusiasm.
In 1 88 1 the Synod of Kentucky entered upon what is
now known as pioneer enterprise of synodical evangelism.
Some individual Christians offered to make a liberal dona-
tion to home mission work within the bounds of that
State, provided the churches of the State should raise a
stipulated sum. This offer has been renewed, and the
work kept up, from year to year. Recently not less than
eight or ten Synods, led on by this example, have inaugu-
rated some form of synodical work.^
The various evangelistic efforts, backed some in one
way, some in another, have not always co-worked without
friction and to the satisfaction of the whole church. It
does not fall within the scope of our present purpose to
discuss at this point the relative propriety of these several
forms of effort. That will come later. Here we have but
to observe that in '* every way Christ is preached," and
the church grows.
Third, faithful effort on the part of the pastor and peo-
ple. Where an army does anything toward the permanent
occupation of a hostile country, there must be something
more than skirmishes of the advance guard along the few
lines of its approach. The real battle occurs later, when
the great hosts have come up face to face with one an-
other. The invaders then must overwhelm their foes, and
must seize and man the citadels of the land. Even then
the war is not over. The Philistines may arise at any mo-
ment. Israel secures her quiet only at the price of eternal
1 " Report of Executive Committee of Home Missions of 1893," p. 11.
362 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. in.
vigilance. The sort of advance the Southern Presbyterian
Church has made is the best possible testimonial to the
common watchfulness and fidelity of the whole church.
The great majority of her members, under the guidance
of her ministers and preachers, have been faithful, and in
their measure efficient. The preachers have done their
duty nobly in proclaiming the needs, and the poverty of
the people has abounded unto the riches of their liberality.
The truth of this assertion will be illustrated with toler-
able fullness in the remaining part of this chapter, which is
devoted to setting forth the development of the church's
several agencies. Anticipating its establishment, we be-
hold in the fact one of the causes, under God, of the rapid
numerical increase of the Southern Presbyterian Church.
I. Foreign Missions,
The large place given to foreign missions in the heart
and work of the church at the time of her organization —
at a time when there seemed next to no possibility, owing
to the barriers of war, of doing any foreign mission work
except among the Indians of the Southwest — has been
remarked upon and admired for its heroism of faith and
singular devotion to our Lord's last command. Special
attention was called, moreover, to the nature of the agency
which the church then created to carry out this most
important of church enterprises. Under the control of
natural sagacity the committee and missionaries did their
work without the aid of a formal interpretation of the
committee's constitutional powers and the missionaries' re-
lations until 1877. But by that time the missionaries had
become much more numerous, and there was need of such
an interpretation. The Assembly of 1877 adopted a man-
ual for the use of missionaries and missionary candidates.
FOREIGN MISSIONS. 363
Certain excerpts from the more important sections of this
manual will repay the reader's attention. They are as
follows :
The Executive Committee. — The committee, in virtue of authority conferred
upon it by the General Assembly, directs and superintends the missionary
work in all departments, but exercises no ecclesiastical functions. It may,
however, give friendly advice to missionaries in relation to church matters
when requested to do so. It appoints missionaries and assistant mission-
aries ; determines their fields of labor ; fixes their salaries ; determines their
particular employments ; and may transfer a missionary from one department
of labor to another, having due regard, however, to the views and feelings
of the missionary himself in all these matters. The committee may recall a
missionary for incompetence, for neglect of duty, for disobedience to instruc-
tions, or for disorderly conduct. The missionary, however, in case he feels
aggrieved, has the right to appeal to the General Assembly, to which the
missionary and the Executive Committee are alike responsible.
Missionaries. — The missionary is regarded in the light of an evangelist in
the Scriptural sense of the term. . . . His business is to preach the gospel ;
to found churches ; to aid in forming Presbyteries, when the native churches
are prepared for such ; to translate the Word of God when necessary ; to
train native preachers ; and to do whatever else may be necessary to the
promotion of evangelical religion. He may not become a settled pastor of a
church, but shall establish native pastorates over all such churches as soon
as suitable persons can be found, while he himself shall go on founding new
churches wherever God's providence shall make it proper to do so. He may
advise a church session, or may preside at its meetings when requested to
do so, but he shall not have an authoritative voice in any of its proceedings.
So he may aid in establishing a Presbytery, when the native churches are
prepared for it ; he may, upon invitation, sit as a corresponding member in
the Presbytery and give advice ; but he is not to be regarded as a member,
or to exercise any of the rights of one, but retains his connection with his
Presbytery at home.
Assistant Missimiaries. — This term is applied indifferently to laymen sent
out as teachers, to missionary physicians, to unmarried ladies, and to the
wives of missionaries. All these, save the wives of missionaries, are under
the general direction of the mission.
The Mission. — At every central station there is a mission, technically so
called — a sub-committee — acting in direct and constant communication with
the Executive Committee of Missions. It is composed of all the mission-
aries and male assistant missionaries of the different stations. No native
can be a member of it except by the appointment of the Executive Com-
mittee, on the recommendation of the mission. All members of the mission
are expected to correspond freely with the home oihce; but in relation to
364 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
business matters, such as appropriation of funds, the establishment of
schools, the formation of new stations, the return of missionaries, and the
like, the correspondence shall be between the mission as such and the Ex-
ecutive Committee.
Qualifications for the Missionary Work. — As a general thing the same
qualifications which will render a minister useful in the home field will make
him equally so in the foreign. One who does not promise to be useful and
efficient at home ought not for a moment to think of going abroad. The
missionary ought to have an unimpaired physical constitution ; good intel-
lectual training; a reasonable facility for acquiring language; a sound judg-
ment of men and things ; versatility of gifts ; tact and adaptation to men of
all classes and circumstances ; a cheerful, hopeful spirit ; ability to work
harmoniously with others ; persistent energy in carrying out plans once
formed; consecrated common sense — all controlled by single-heartedness,
self-sacrificing devotion to Christ and his cause.
Support of Missionaries. — The salary allowed a missionary is not regarded
in the light of a compensation for services rendered. The church, in the
prosecution of the work, aims simply to enable the missionary to carry out
with efficiency the desires of his own heart to preach the gospel to the un-
evangelized nations of the earth. She proposes, therefore, to give him what
may be regarded as a comfortable but economical support — such a support as
will free him from all anxious cares about his temporal comforts and enable
him to give himself wholly to the work of the Lord.i
As appears from the third article of the constitution of
the Executive Committee, but more clearly from the first
of the above excerpts, the so-called Executive Committee
is a commission rather than a committee.^ It is empow-
ered to take tentative courses on occasions of emergency,
which must be considered and may be approved by the
next Assembly, but which are in the interim backed by
the power of the court constituting the commission. Just
at present there is an agitation in the church as to whether
certain functions, now exercised by this committee, should
not rather be exercised by the Presbyteries and church
sessions. It is affirmed by some that the present usage of
our church, as well as of most others, in this particular,
is unscriptural ; that the Presbyteries should appoint and
1 " Minutes of the Assembly of 1877," pp. 418 et seq.
2 Compare Alexander's " Digest," p. 105.
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 365
direct the missionaries. This affirmation is incapable of
proof. The only debatable ground is that of expediency.
Whether the superintendence of missionaries is made the
work of a lower or of a higher court depends on the con-
stitutional definitions of the spheres of the several courts.
Either court, being composed of elders of two coordinate
classes, is a Scriptural body. Before the constitution of
the church has defined and restricted the rights of the
several courts, the Assembly is Scripturally competent to
exercise the functions which have been actually assigned
to its committee, and assigned to it in the constitution.
But the agitation has been so earnest, and by men of such
ability and prominence, that the second Macon Assembly
(1893) has appointed ''an ad interim committee to inves-
tigate the entire matter, and report to the next General
Assembly ... as to the expediency of transferring any
functions from the Executive Committee to the Presby-
teries and church sessions." This committee is assigned
the further task of seeing whether, in their judgment, any
modification should be made in the present method of ad-
ministration in this part of the church's work, and whether
any amendment should be made, and if so, what, to the
present manual.^
The size of the Executive Committee, originally eleven^
was by the Assembly of 1888, owing to some quirk, en-
larged to fifteen. The Assembly of 1 889 reduced it again
to eleven. This number is large enough for counsel. It
secures a greater sense of individual responsibility than
the larger number. ^
1 " Minutes of the Assembly of 1893," p. 42.
2 The location of the committee was at first at Columbia, S. C. In 1875
it was removed to Baltimore. In 1889 it was carried to Nashville. The
reason for the transference to Baltimore was that the committee might be
afforded the larger facilities of a commercial and financial center. An un-
happy local friction was the occasion of the removal to Nashville.
366 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
The secretaries of this committee have been able men.^
Dr. Wilson was a man of massive virtues, profound sagac-
ity, practical methods, great executive ability, fruitful
piety, and marked consecration to the cause of missions.
Dr. Mcllwaine, as secretary, was characterized by the
practical good sense, the earnestness, and the ability to
accomplish his ends which have marked him in every rela-
tion in which the providence of God has placed him. But
the Napoleon of foreign missions thus far in this church
has been Dr. Houston. In mental endowment, in iron
persistency, in the spirit of *' this one thing I do," in a,
sense of the sublime importance of the work of foreign
missions, in a contagious enthusiasm for it, as well as in
nearly all the essentials of the executive officer, he is be-
hind no secretary of foreign missions that we know any-
thing of. He may have failed in a few instances to meet
with tact the wills of advisers scarcely less imperious than
his own ; he may have somewhat of the prelate in him ;
but no man can deny that like a skillful general he has
marshaled the hosts among whom God has placed him.
That the church is getting into the very first rank of for-
eign mission workers is due in part to this fragile-looking,
high-headed, long-faced, iron-jawed man.
Nevertheless, we would not forget that the missionary
zeal exhibited arose not primarily from the secretaries,
but from the church. The secretaries were of the church,
and its exponents. The church has been from the be-
ginning a missionary church. We have seen that it was
in 1861.
^ The Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, D.D., was secretary 1861-85, and secre-
tary emeritus 1885-87, Rev. R. Mcllwaine having been coordinate secretary
1872-82. M. H. Houston, D.D., was secretary 1884-93. The Rev. H. M.
Woods was elected by the Assembly of 1893 to this post of supreme com-
mand of the aggressive forces of our church. Dr. Woods has refused to
accept the election, however.
RECOMMENDATION OF THE ASSEMBLY. 367
In 1862 the Assembly renewed the recommendation
" for a concert of prayer, to be held on the first Sabbath
of each month, in all our churches, for the Lord's blessing
on the cause of missions, and that contributions be made
at those meetings whenever expedient." ^ This recom-
mendation in substance has been renewed from year to
year, and kindred ones added : such as that in the public
services of the church prayer be regularly made for all
men,2 and missionary intelligence be diffused and mission-
ary motives be enforced by the Executive Committee, by
pastors, by Sabbath- school superintendents and teachers.^
In 1867 the Executive Committee was authorized to pub-
lish a monthly missionary paper for gratuitous distribution
to the ministers and Sabbath- school superintendents. This
paper has been fostered carefully by the Assembly from
that time to the present. It has grown to be a self-sup-
porting paper of unusual merit. Its circulation on April i,
1893, was 9250.* It is doing incalculable good to the
cause of missions.
The Assembly of 1884 recommended to the faculties
of the theological seminaries " that in some way they seek
to beget and foster among the students a lively interest in
foreign missions."^ This recommendation has been re-
peated, as by the Assembly of 1890, which recommended
further " that the question of the duty of enlisting person-
ally in the missionary service abroad be pressed on the
attention, not only of theological students, but of our pas-
tors and consecrated members."^ The Assembly of 1882
resolved that it " advise the Presbyteries to devote one
1 " Minutes of the Assembly of 1862," p. 10.
2 " Minutes of 1891," p. 237.
3 " Minutes of 1874," p. 418; 1884, p. 212; 1887, p. 242.
4 " Annual Report of Executive Committee of 1891," p. 5.
5 " Minutes of 1884," p. 272.
* " Minutes of the Assembly of 1890," p. 32, part iii.
368 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
evening during the spring session, or such other hour as
may be convenient, to the general discussion of foreign
missions in the presence of the congregation among whom
they meet."^ And since 1867 the Assembly itself has
devoted an evening of each session to a discussion of this
great enterprise. In all these ways the Assembly has
tried to excite an intelligent interest on the subject, and
thus occasion larger efforts on the part of the rank and file
of the church.
Furthermore, the Assembly has tried to elicit larger gifts
by encouraging the formation of congregational missionary
societies, ladies', young men's, and children's,^ and at times
by specifying, through her committee, objects for which
individual churches might contribute.^ She has once and
again empowered her Executive Committee to make, dur-
ing defined periods, special appeals for free-will offerings.*
Nor has the church made an ignoble response to these
efforts by her highest courts. In poverty at the start, in
relative poverty now, her people, ever cramped by finan-
cial stresses, have yet abounded in their liberality. Dur-
ing the later years of the ninth decade individual churches
in considerable numbers undertook the support of one or
more missionaries. Some of the congregations which did
this had been, as they supposed, unable to give more than
the meagerest support to their own pastor. But the Lord
enlarged them. Nor have the people been slow in offer-
ing themselves as compared with other churches. Pastors,
young and middle-aged, candidates for the ministry, con-
secrated laymen, and ladies, have, as a rule, responded to
the calls as fast as made.
The church's missionary zeal has manifested itself fur-
1 " Minutes of 1882," p. 546.
2
" Minutes of 1873," p. 365; 1785, p. 37; 1878, p. 619; 1892, p. 446.
3 " Minutes of 1884," p. 262. 4 " Minutes of 1886," p. 35.
FOREIGN MISSIONARIES. 369
ther in a disposition to scrutinize closely the work of mis-
sionaries.i The courts of the church have shown this dis-
position, and the people themselves, to a pleasing degree.
One of the common topics of discussion in the Presbyte-
rian home of late years is as to the best method of foreign
mission work — the place of the school in foreign mission
work, the place of the native Christian worker, the relation
which the missionary should sustain to the native Chris-
tians, the relation of the church, when set up in the regions
beyond, to the home church, whether it should be autono-
mous or not.
To say the least, the growing zeal of the church in mis-
sions has not been retarded by the lives of the missionaries.
On the contrary, one of the things which has helped to
fan missionary zeal to a flame is the conduct and lives of
the noble bands of missionaries who have gone out from
the church. Mistakes have been made in sending out
missionaries. In rare cases an unworthy man has been
sent; some have gone who had little to commend them
but an earnest spirit of service ; but as a rule the men sent
have been a credit to the church. Such men as Lane and
Boyle in Brazil, as Houston, Johnson, Davis in China, as
Lapsley in Africa, and dozens of others in these coun-
tries, have been, and will continue to be, an inspiration to,
and provocative of, missionary effort in the home church.
Their difficult and lonely duties have been performed with
fidelity and ability, and generally with gratifying results.
The church has planted stations in China, Italy, the
United States of Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Greece, Japan,
the Congo Free State, Cuba, and Corea, as well as among the
Indians. She counted at the end of the ecclesiastical year
April 31, 1892, to April 31, 1893, 34 missionaries in China,
22 in Brazil, 8 in Mexico, 21 in Japan, 7 in Africa, 7 in
1 "Minutes of 1883," p. 32.
370 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
Corea, 2 In Cuba, and i in Italy. A good many have
been sent out since. ^ As a result of missionary effort, the
church can now look upon about 2000 communicants, many
hundreds of young people receiving Christian instruction,
many native teachers, preachers, etc., at work among their
people, spreading the light of the glorious gospel of God,
an immeasurable influence on the heathen world, predis-
posing it to hear Christianity as it is. The results in either
Mexico or Japan are enough to justify all the efforts which
the church has put forth in behalf of missions.
Nevertheless, the great law of its propagation laid down
in Acts i. 8 has not been sufficiently followed by the church
in its mission work. That law is : The church shall in its
propagandism seek to witness where its witnessi^ig will
result in the most efficient additions to the army of witness-
hearers for Christ. We look back with joy on the spirit
of missions by which the church has been characterized,
but cannot fail to remark that it has lacked an adequate
knowledge of the religious conditions of the world so as to
know where best to push its witness for Christ. It made
a fiasco in the United States of Colombia. It failed to
sufficiently concentrate on Japan when Japan was openest
to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ — let the opportunity
of centuries slip. Often the church in its mission work
has displayed zeal with only limited knowledge. It has
struck about like blind Samson, whereas, looking equally
to God, it should have used its eyes. The demand which
God makes of the church for intelligent effort — a knowl-
edge of the field where present missionary effort will be
most effective, and for work there — is one that only the
1 The China Mission was established in 1866; that to the United States
of Colombia existed from 1866 to 1877 ; that to Italy was established in 1867 ;
that to Brazil, in 1868; that to Mexico, in 1874; that to Greece, in 1874;
that to Japan, in 1886; that to the Congo Free State, in 1890; that to Cuba,
in 1890; that to Corea, in 1892.
HOME MISSIONARIES. 37 1
superficial can deny. Yet the church has not been wide
awake to the demand. Again, our church courts have
given too great a play to voluntaryism in missions in de-
termining who should go. It is easy enough to see this
in looking over the list of missionaries sent out. The
church should pick her men as the early church did — pick
them on account of special fitness for the work.
To a greater growth of missionary effort the church
needs the Holy Ghost, of course, and the truth in the
heart and the soul of the church, and moving the church
— the truth as to the nature and destiny of unregenerate
man, and that Jesus can and will save.
It is worthy of special remark that the church, at the
suggestion of the Pan- Presbyterian Council, has for a
number of years been employing active measures to bring
about all proper cooperation with other Presbyterian bodies
of sound faith in the mission field. In particular, a plan of
cooperation with the Northern Church in foreign missions
was agreed on by the Assembly of 1893, according to
which, in schools, theological seminaries, and evangelistic
work, the two churches are to work in closest concert
and harmony. The missionaries of several Presbyterian
churches, including these two, had for years been In virtual
cooperation. 1
This movement is a correct one, though attended by
some dangers. Witnessing loses its power when it loses
its distinctness.
2. Home Missions.
We have already shown how before its organization,
during the interregnum, the work of this committee was
carried on by the Southwestern Advisory Committee ;
and we have indicated the scope of the work and the con-
1 See " Report of Executive Committee of 1893," pp. 10, 11.
372 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. . [Chap. iii.
stitution of the agency as erected by the Assembly of
1 86 1, under the title of "The Committee of Domestic
Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate
States of America." 1 We propose now to trace the growth
and branching of this work to the present.
The Greater Constitutional Charigcs. — Let us look first
at the greater constitutional changes in the agency. In
1865 the war left the bounds of the Southern Church
filled with crippled and broken-down churches, ** espe-
cially along the broad track of those desolating marches
that were made through most of the central Southern
States." The country had been reduced to savage pov-
erty, sanctuaries had been broken down, and ministers —
able ones — compelled to betake themselves to secular avo-
cations to get bread. Moreover, emissaries from the con-
quering section were pouring in with a view to gathering
her flocks into folds which they had not known.'^
The church felt that she must rise and give herself to
relieving the distress of her suffering members. The
Assembly of 1865, accordingly, determined to raise a sus-
tentation fund, and assigned this work to the Executive
Committee of Domestic Missions, adding to the commit-
tee, moreover, a wide-awake man from each Synod, whose
special duty it was to canvass his Synod, ascertain what
churches were needing help, what ones were able to con-
tribute, and to do all he could, by correspondence and vis-
itation, to collect funds for this general object.^
The effort was successful. *' The appointment of synod-
ical commissioners to act in concert with the committee
proved to be a wise and judicious measure. In no other
way would it have been possible either to ascertain the
condition and wants of the brethren, or to have distributed
1 Chapter ii., pp. 340 ff. 2 " Minutes of 1865," p. 391.
3 " Minutes of 1865," p. 391.
HOME MISSIONS. 373
the funds in the hands of the committee in a just and
equitable manner."^
In the meantime the cause of domestic missions proper
had been coming on badly. Not one fifth of the churches
during the year 1865-66 contributed anything to the cause,
and nineteen twentieths of the funds which came to the
hands of the Executive Committee came specially desig-
nated to the cause of sustentation. The prostration of
the country explained in part the small contributions, but
there were other causes. The Executive Committee occu-
pied an anomalous position in the minds of most of the
church- members. Some regarded it as a mere financial
agency, whose special province it was '* to gather up the
surplus funds of the wealthier churches and Presbyteries,
and apply them to the weaker Presbyteries and destitute
regions of the country." ^ Others, again, regarded the
committee as combining in itself both ecclesiastical and
financial functions, ** as a complete and sufficient instru-
mentality for carrying on the work of domestic missions."^
Further, the church felt that, in her peculiar circumstances,
she scarcely had any need, then, of a Committee of Domes-
tic Missions, regarding that committee in the light of an
evangelistic, aggressive agency. The whole field was cov-
ered with Presbyteries, the best agents that can be em-
1 " Executive Committee's Report of 1866," p. 44.
2 " Minutes of 1866," p. 49.
3 The constitution of the committee had clothed it with powers too large
— the rights of the Presbytery were trenched upon. Article III. reads:
" It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to take the direction and
control of the domestic missionary work, subject to such instructions as may
be given by the General Assembly from time to time ; to appoint mission-
aries and evangelists for the field of labor " {sic) " and to provide for their sup-
port, and to aid feeble churches, and to do whatever else may be necessary
for the advancement of domestic missionary work ; and that in the discharge
of its duties the committee act in concert and harmony with the Presbyteries
and churches ; that the committee authorize all appropriations and expendi-
tures of money, including the salaries of their officers." — " Minutes of the
Assembly of 1866," p. 20.
374 ^-^-^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
ployed in carrying on missionary work in their own bounds,
certainly so far as ecclesiastical control is concerned. The
church did feel, on the other hand, an urgent need of her
Sustentation Committee. Her work for the time was not
so much to establish new churches as to repair old ones.
Jerusalem had to rebuild her own walls before she could
dwell in safety and repossess the land.
As a natural sequence of this condition of affairs, the
Assembly of 1866, in response to an overture from Dr. J.
Leighton Wilson, setting forth reasons, the chief of which
we have given above, why the Committee of Domestic
Missions should be abolished and a Committee of Sus-
tentation be appointed in its place, did substantially what
Dr. Wilson overtured.^
A glance over the constitution of the Committee of
Sustentation shows that the new committee differs from
the old in having no ecclesiastical functions ^ save in respect
to the missionaries who may be set to work beyond the
1 For overture, see " Minutes of 1866," pp. 49-52.
2 The preamble to the resolution which contains the constitution of the
Committee of Sustentation asserts : "To the Presbytery it belongs to ordain
and commission ministers of the gospel, to commit to them the oversight of
the particular congregations, upon the call of the people, and to appoint
them, with their own consent, to fields of missionary labor. It is also the
province of the Presbytery to determine what part of its territory is to be
regarded as missionary ground, and what churches ought to receive assistance
in maintaining their pastors, or in erecting houses of worship. It is the
duty of the Presbytery to superintend the work of its missionaries, to receive
their report, and to the Presbytery alone are they responsible, in the first
instance, under God, for the faithful discharge of their duties. It is there-
fore incumbent on the Presbyteries to provide for the worldly maintenance
of the Lord's ministers. . . . And inasmuch as there is a great inequality
in the strength and resources of the different Presbyteries, and because,
according to the law of the life of the church, it is the imperative duty of the
strong to aid the weak, in order that the healthful vigor of the whole body
may be preserved, it becomes necessary to have some central agency, through
which the vital current of the church's life may flow in due proportion to
every part, and that all the energy, zeal, and resources of the church may
be combined in the prosecution of its most important work. This is the
office of the General Assembly, but it can only be practically fulfilled through
a committee."—" Minutes of 1866," pp. 27 ff.
THE INVALID FUND, 375
bounds of any Presbytery, in putting sustentation as its
first object, and defining more specifically the purposes of
the agency. No object of the Committee of Domestic
Missions is forgotten in the construction of the Committee
of Sustentation, The year following its establishment the
Executive Committee asserted in its annual report that
four general objects or departments of labor were regarded
as included, in the general plan of Sustentation : ** i. To
aid feeble churches in support of their pastors and sup-
plies, and thus accomplish the twofold object of maintain-
ing the stated preaching of the gospel in all these churches,
and at the same time secure a competency for every labor-
ing minister throughout the church. ... 2. To aid in the
support of missionaries and evangelists wherever such aid
is asked. 3. To assist in building and repairing church
edifices wherever the people have not the means of them-
selves to do it. 4. To assist missionaries or ministerial
laborers in getting from one field to another, where they
are without the means of doing this of themselves."^ But
while no object of the Committee of Domestic Missions is
forgotten, the name of the new committee, the frame of
its constitution, as well as the second of its by-laws sanc-
tioned by the Assembly of 1867, and which reads: ''The
committee shall always appropriate specifically to the dif-
ferent objects presented by the Presbyterial Committee of
Missions ; and unless a preference is expressed to the con-
trary, it will always give the precedence to applications in
behalf of the feeble churches "^ — all show that the work
of the committee was chiefly to uphold the crushed and
broken churches.
The Invalid Fund. — But this committee was a living
branch of a living tree ; it was to grow and branch itself,
Otie of the first branches of the work to develop itself
1 " Minutes of 1867," pp. 155, 156. 2 " Minutes of 1867," p. 159.
376 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
was the Invalid Fund. As far back as 1863 an elaborate
overture, urging the Assembly to provide a fund for the
relief of superannuated and disabled ministers and their
families, was introduced, with the result that a committee
was appointed to consider the whole subject, and report
to the next General Assembly. No practical measures
seem to have resulted from this effort.
In 1867 aid was asked of the Assembly for the family
of a minister of the church, recently deceased; and the
Assembly authorized the Committee of Sustentation to
** appropriate five per cent, of all contributions to its objects
to the relief of destitute widows and children of ministers,
and indigent ministers in infirm health, provided no such
per cent, be appropriated from the contribution of any
church or person prohibiting such appropriation, and pro-
vided further that this plan of operation shall not continue
longer than the meeting of the Assembly for the year
1869."^
This was a merely temporary device. In 1868, '' in lieu
of the appropriation of five per cent, of the Sustentation
Fund," the Assembly enjoined upon the Presbyteries to
have a collection taken up in all the churches under their
care for a relief fund which should be devoted to the relief
of disabled ministers, and of widows and orphans of de-
ceased ministers. These collections were to be forwarded
to the treasurer of Sustentation, and disbursed according
to the discretion of the committee, upon application made
through the Presbyterial Standing Committees on Domes-
tic Missions.^ The Executive Committee was to have no
power to make appropriations except they should be first
recommended by the Presbyterial Committee. This scheme
remains in vogue.
The Evangelistic Work. — The Assembly of 1873 deter-
1 " Minutes of 1867," p. 148. 2 " Minutes of 1868," p. 274.
PRESBYTERIAL EVANGELISM. 377
mined that the sustentatlon and evangelistic work should
be conducted separately after January, 1874. This arm
of the Assembly's work up to 1873 was regarded as hav-
ing been a failure. Contributions had been small. Nor is
it a matter of wonder — the church had been in the gripe
of Titanic poverty. It was hoped that the contributions
would be increased by separating the evangelistic work.
To a Hmited extent these hopes were realized, but the
contributions to this cause of the Assembly have never
been large.
As the years have gone by an increasing number of the
Presbyteries and many of the Synods have preferred to
handle the funds for their evangelists themselves. Hence,
while the church has of late been extraordinarily active
in evangelization in the home territory, the Assembly's
committee has done but little relatively in the work. It
should be observed here, however, that the Assembly's plan
is the better one. The plan of independent synodical and
presbyterial work appeals more to selfish emulation, syn-
odical and presbyterial ambition. It causes expenditures
often where there is no sufficient promise, and non-ex-
penditure in fresh fields, full of promise, in our newer and
weaker Synods. It is independent rather than presbyte-
rian in tendency, weakening to the common life of the great
body.
In keeping with the projection to the front of the Ex-
ecutive Committee's functions in reference to evangeliza-
tion was the change of the committee's name, in 1879, to
" Executive Committee of Home Missions." This change
suited the aspiration of the committee with reference to
the church's future. Furthermore, the people found it
hard to understand the meaning of *' sustentation " as ap-
plied to the work of the committee, while they were at
once attracted to the word '* missions," and would readily
378 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
comprehend and fall in with the idea expressed by it.^
Albeit the name of the committee was changed, the func-
tions remained the same, saving the fact that the evangel-
izing functions had greater relative emphasis.
The Colored Evangelistic Fund. — The next branch of
this agency to receive specific development was the
Colored Evangelistic Fund, in 1886. We have seen that
in the Assembly of 1861 missionary operations among the
colored people were especially enjoined upon the Com-
mittee of Domestic Missions, the Presbyteries also being
exhorted to cooperate with the committee in securing
pastors and missionaries for this field. In 1865 the As-
sembly formed the first of a series of plans for the instruc-
tion of the freedmen. The prevailing sentiment in that
Assembly was in favor of a united church life for the two
peoples, though even so early the plan of separate congre-
gations was contemplated as a possibility. In answer to
an overture as to the course to be pursued toward the
colored people, the Assembly resolved :
That whereas experience has invariably proved the advantages of the
colored people and the white being united together in the worship of God,
we see no reason why it should be otherwise now that they are freedmen and
not slaves. Should our colored friends think it best to separate from us, and
organize themselves into distinct congregations under white pastors and elders,
for the present, or under colored elders and pastors as soon as God in his
providence shall raise up men suitably qualified for those offices, this church
will do all in its power to encourage, foster, and assist them. 2
In 1867 the Assembly, after expressing the fear that
the current condition of the colored race was one of alarm-
ing spiritual jeopardy, its sincere affection for these people,
and its sense of responsibility to do all in its power to save
them from the calamities with which they were threat-
ened, resolved:
1 " Report of Executive Committee," 1887, pp. 7, 8.
2 " Minutes of 1865," p. 370.
DR, GIRARDEAU'S PAPER. 379
That, in the judgment of the Assembly, it is highly inexpedient that there
should be any ecclesiastical separation of the white and colored races ; that
such a measure would threaten evil to both races, and especially to the col-
ored, and that, therefore, it is desirable that every warrantable effort be made
affectionately to dissuade the freed people from severing their connection
with our churches, and to retain them with us as of old. Should they de-
cline this fellowship of ordinances, and desire a separate organization, then
our sessions are authorized to organize them into branch congregations.
In such cases the Assembly recommends that such congregations shall be
allowed, under the sanction of the sessions, to elect from among themselves,
every year, such number of superintendents or watchmen as the session
may advise, who shall be charged with the oversight of such congregations.
These superintendents shall report to the sessions, for their action, all mat-
ters relating to the said congregations.
Whenever Presbyteries may find it necessary to organize separate colored
congregations, they shall appoint a commission of elders, who shall discharge
the functions committed to the sessions in the preceding resolution.
That while nothing in our Standards or the Word of God prohibits the in-
troduction to the gospel ministry of duly qualified persons of any race, yet
difficulties arise in the general structure of society, and from providential
causes, which may and should restrain the application of this abstract prin-
ciple. Holding this in view, the Assembly recommends that wherever the
session or Presbytery shall find a colored person who possesses suitable
qualifications, they shall be authorized to license him to labor as exhorter
among the colored people, under the supervision of the body appointing
him.i
The burden here was evidently too heavy for the As-
sembly. It had a bad case of the blind staggers. The
church was stronger than the Assembly of 1866. Accord-
ingly, the Synod of Virginia and Presbytery of Mississippi
each overtured the next Assembly, proposing such a
modification of the action of the Assembly of 1866 on
the relation of the church to the colored people as should
** authorize the Presbyteries, in the exercise of their dis-
cretion, to ordain to the gospel ministry and to organize
into separate congregations duly quaHfied persons of the
colored race, and so declare that mere race or color is not
regarded as a bar to office or privileges in the Presbyterian
1 " Minutes of 1866," pp. 35, 36. Dr. Girardeau was the author of this
paper.
38o THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
Church in the United States."^ In response the Assembly
resolved :
1. That resolutions of the last Assembly complained of should be revoked.
2. That inasmuch as, according to the constitution, the duty of admitting
candidates to the office of the gospel ministry devolves solely on the Presby-
teries, and that of electing elders and deacons solely on the congregations,
all male persons of proper qualifications for such offices, of whatever race,
color, or civil condition, must be admitted or elected by these authorities
respectively, in accordance with the principles of our church government,
and in the exercise of a sound Christian discretion.
3. That the Assembly declines, on the ground of constitutional incompe-
tency, to make any declaration respecting the future ecclesiastical organiza-
tion of such freedmen as may belong to our communion, believing that the
responsibility as well as the course to be pursued devolves on these persons,
who are both politically and ecclesiastically free as all others to serve God
according to the dictates of their own consciences.
4. The Assembly earnestly enjoins on all our ministers and people to use
all diligence in affectionate and discreet efforts for the spiritual benefit of the
colored race within reach of their private and public ministrations, and to
seek by all lawful means to introduce them into a permanent connection with
our church ; and for this purpose the Assembly recognizes the lawfulness of
the measures such as have long been used in various portions of our church,
contemplating the judicious selection of the more pious and intelligent per-
sons among the colored communicants in suitable official capacities for the
spiritual benefit of their own race. 2
The Assembly of 1869 was somewhat retrogressive. It
tried to formulate a general plan to be followed by all the
Presbyteries in dealing with the negro. It resolved :
That separate colored churches might be established, the same to be united
with adjacent white churches under a common pastorate ; to be allowed to
elect deacons and ruling elders ; and to be represented in the upper courts
by the pastors in charge of them and by the ruling elders in the white
churches with which they would be thus associated, until they should be
sufficiently educated to warrant their becoming independent ; Provided that
the colored people themselves would not oppose a change in their existing
relations, and would consent to the foregoing arrangement.
It further resolved :
That suitable colored men should be employed to speak the word of exhor-
tation to their people, under the direction of pastors and evangelists ; that
when colored candidates for the ministry should be able to stand the usual
1 " Minutes of 1867," p. 145. 2 " Minutes of 1867," p. 4$.
COLORED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 38 1
examination, Presbyteries might proceed to license them ; and in event of these
licentiates being qualified and desired to take charge of colored churches,
Presbyteries might either ordain and install them over such churches, still
holding their connection with us, or ordain and install them over such churches,
with the understanding that they should thenceforward be ecclesiastically
separated from us.l
This was an improvement over the paper of 1866 in
that it does not trespass against the form of church poHty
to such an extent as the earher paper did. But even the
latter paper is faulty in this respect. What sort of elders
are they who cannot represent the church in the Presby-
tery? While better than the paper of 1866, the resolu-
tions of 1869 are not so good as those of 1867. That
paper made the elder an elder, though he were black as
ebony ; and in respect to the separation into independent
ecclesiastical organizations, it was soHcitous for union, and
held that if separation came it must come of the negro's
own motion. The plan of 1869, however, was only tenta-
tive. It was not until the Assembly of 1874 that a definite
policy, which remains till to-day, was adopted. It has
been briefly stated thus : " The Presbyterian Church, South,
is resolved on the establishment and development of a
separate, independent, self-sustaining Colored Presbyterian
Church, ministered to by colored preachers of approved
piety, and such training as shall best suit them for their
actual life-work'' ^
The reasons for this resolve taken by the Assembly of
1874, and supported consistently since, were: the senti-
ment of the church, which has been moving steadily in
this direction ; a recognition of the natural instinct in the
colored people, expressing itself in the desire for a sepa-
rate organization ; and the prospect of usefulness in assist-
ing these people in the process of self-development.
1 " Minutes of 1869," pp. 388, 389. This paper was by Dr. Girardeau.
2 Phillips, " The Presbyterian Church and the Colored People," p. 3.
382 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
Toward the establishment of this independent Colored
Presbyterian Church the Southern Presbyterian Church
has proposed to give aid in the form of '* sympathetic,
practical counsel, liberal offerings of money, and training
for their ministers."^
The Assembly of 1874 requested the Committee of
Sustentation '' to take into consideration the best method
of providing training for the colored candidates for the
ministry, and report thereupon to the next Assembly." It
asked the Presbyteries to institute measures for their in-
struction, and in other ways to push the work among the
negroes. And it established the Colored Evangelistic
Fund for the " sustentation of weak colored churches and
for evangelistic work among the negroes." This fund was
put into the hands of the Committee of Sustentation for
its administration.^
The committee had previously made contributions for
the work among the colored people. But more promi-
nence was given this department of work in 1874. The
Assembly of 1879 gave the committee the right to appro-
priate for this purpose, according to its discretion.^ In
1886 the Assembly made an effort to secure increased
contributions for the cause by ordering an annual collec-
tion in all the churches, on the first Sabbath in Decem-
ber, for the evangelization of the colored race, instead of
for the Tuscaloosa Institute, as had been the custom since
1877. The funds secured from this collection were to be
applied, first, for supporting the Tuscaloosa Institute, and
second, in carrying on evangelization among the colored
people.
The Executive Committee of Home Missions continued
in charge of colored evangelization until 1891, when the
1 Phillips, " The Presbyterian Church and the Colored People," p. 9.
2 " Minutes of 1874," pp. 576 ff. 3 " Minutes of 1879," p. 51.
CHURCH ERECTION AND LOAN FUND. 383
Executive Committee of Colored Evangelization was or-
ganized. The treasurer of the Home Mission Committee
still acts as treasurer of the Colored Evangelization Fund ;
but in other respects the parent committee has been re-
lieved of the official care of the negroes.
At the time of the formation of the new committee,
four Presbyteries,^ composed entirely of African ministers
and churches, existed in kindly relations toward the
mother-church, and asked such aid as that church could
give in the work undertaken. The efficient and devoted
secretary of the Committee of Colored Evangelization is
the Rev. A. L. Phillips.
The Church Erection and Loan Fund. — The Committee
of Home Missions was destined to shoot out yet another
branch, viz., ''The Church Erection and Loan Fund."
This fund is intended to help feeble organizations to a
church home. From the start the Committee of Sus-
tentation had given such help as it could. In 1885 the
Assembly authorized the Executive Committee of Home
Missions to make loans to congregations in aid of Church
Erection, which loans were to become debts of honor,
without interest, to be paid back in instalments, running
from one to five years. In 1888 the Assembly ordered
the establishment of a separate fund for Church Erection,
and the committee directed the treasurer to transfer the
Loan Fund account to the Church Erection account. The
two funds were consolidated. This fund is growing. The
cause is popular. The fund is needed that small organ-
izations gathered by the evangelists may be housed and
1 " One of these, the Presbytery of North and South Carolina, had been
formed for a number of years. It had five ministers, one licentiate, and
eleven churches, and four hundred and ninety-two communicants. Another,
the Presbytery of Texas, organized in 1888, had seven ministers, two licen-
tiates, and seven weak churches. Two other Presbyteries, Ethel and Central,
were formed in 1890 and 1891. They were smaller." — " Report of Execu-
tive Committee of Home Missions of 1891," p. 9.
384 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
saved. A considerable proportion of the Presbyteries
contribute to, and use of, the fund. The Executive Com-
mittee of Home Missions has, therefore, to-day, five differ-
ent funds under its management : the Church Erection and
Loan Funds, the Sustentation, the EvangeHstic and Indian
Missions, the InvaHd, and the Colored Evangelistic Fund.^
Having looked at these great constitutional develop-
ments in the agency, we propose now to glance at some of
the more importajtt incidental objects which have engaged
the attention of this committee in the course of its history.
One of the first of these in time, as well as importance,
was supplying the armies of the Confederacy with chap-
lains. The committee's heroic exertions in this direction
were in part the cause, so far as man can be cause of such
a thing, of the twelve thousand hopeful conversions in the
Confederate armies during the year 1863-64, and almost
as great a number the year following.^
The committee has performed the office, to a certain
extent, of an intermediary between vacant churches and
unemployed ministers. It has given aid to organiza-
tions laboring in behalf of seamen. It has tried to raise
the minimum salary of the great body of underpaid pas-
tors, etc.
We now turn to look at the sort of encouragement
which the church at large has given to the work of the
committee. The Assemblies' course toward the committee
has been one of undeviating encouragement, even in the
department of evangehzation. The Assembly of 1871 in-
structed the Presbyteries to institute and provide for a
visitation of all its churches by commissions of ministers
and ruling elders, '* to see how each of them stands in rela-
tion to this matter," and to exhort those who had cooper-
1 The last in a limited sense already explained.
2 " Minutes of 1864," pp. 315 ff.
THE BOARD OF AID. 385
ated before with the Sustentation cause to a still larger
effort on its behalf.^ And this is but a fair specimen of
the efforts which have been made in behalf of those sev-
eral branches of the committee's work by the Assembly.
The Presbyteries, on the other hand, did not comply to
any considerable extent with the instructions of 1871, and
generally have been disproportionately remiss in support-
ing the Evangelization Fund, while only tolerably faithful
in supporting the work of the committee as a whole.
The arms of the great agency which we have been
studying had often been exceedingly feeble, especially
during the years immediately succeeding the war, except
for aid from external sources. The historian would be
remiss who should fail to remark on the help which friends
in Kentucky, in Maryland, and in New York City ex-
tended to the Southern Church during her trying years
under the political reconstruction of the country.
The Board of Aid for Sotitherit Presbyterian Pastors y
located at Louisville, Ky., informed the Assembly of 1865
that already $6000 had been collected for the purposes of
the board in its projected work.^ The Assembly was
touched and deeply gratified at this manifestation of
Christian sympathy on the part of the Kentucky brethren,
and in the name of their common Master accepted their
generous tender of aid. This was God's manna to the
Southern Church. The Executive Committee was made
agent for receiving and disbursing such aid as might be
forwarded to them from the Kentucky source.^
According to the report of the Executive Committee of
1868,^ of the sum received the preceding year for Susten-
tation $9190.73 had been contributed by Christian friends
outside the church connection, and mainly by those re-
1 " Minutes of 1871," p. 35. 2 " Minutes of 1865," p, 355.
3 " Minutes of 1865," p. 70. * " Minutes of 1868," p. 286.
386 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
siding in Baltimore and the vicinity, and in the State of
Kentucky. During the two and a half years preceding
the Assembly of 1868 more than $40,000 of their contri-
butions had passed through the hands of the Committee
of Sustentation.^
The Southern Aid Society of Neiu York. — This society,
which was organized a few years before the Civil War,
for the purpose of rendering aid to the feeble churches
in the Southern country, was an incorporated body, and
consisted of gentlemen of the highest moral and social
position. For several years during and subsequent to
the war the society had no funds to distribute, but about
1872 they came into the possession of about $10,000, de-
vised to their society to be disbursed in accordance with
their constitution. After a conference with the secretary
of the Committee of Sustentation the society agreed to
make its annual appropriations with the advice and under
the direction of the General Assembly's Committee of
Sustentation.^
We have already seen that this committee was consol-
idated with that of foreign missions in 1863. They were
separated on account of the increasing volume of work, and
because it was considered desirable to get the location
of the Home Mission Committee nearer the center of its
great field of operations. In 1886 this committee was
carried to Atlanta.^
1 These Christians have for the most part come into the Southern Church.
The First Church in Baltimore is an important exception.
2 The secretaries of each of the agencies are at least in part an explana-
tion of the peculiar history of each. The secretaries of the committee under
consideration have been: Rev. John Leyburn, D.D., 1861-63; Rev. J.
Leighton Wilson, D.D., 1863-82; Rev. Richard Mcllvvaine, D.D., co-
ordinate secretary, 1872-82; Rev. R. Mcllwaine, D.D., sole secretary, 1882-
83; Rev. J. N. Craig, D.D., 1883.
3 The several locations of this committee have been at New Orleans, 1861-
63; Columbia, S. C, 1863-75; Baltimore, 1875-86; Atlanta, 1886- . New
Orleans was chosen first because that city had been the seat of the South-
EDUCATION. 387
An abortive effort or two has been made at cooperation
with the Presbyterian Church, North, in the work of this
committee in behalf of the freedmen. The way to a more
perfect cooperation is not shut up, however.
3. Education.
In the account of the Constituting Assembly we have
already indicated the nature of the constitution of the
Executive Committee of Education. Assuming, at this
point, a sufficient knowledge on the part of the reader of
said constitution, we propose to trace the more important
changes in the constitution, and then the more important
experiences and activities of the committee, the support,
the results effected, and its manning.
The plan for securing an educated ministry provided in
the constitution of the committee organized in 1861 has
been styled a beneficiary or eleemosynary plan of edu-
cation, and has never been in universal esteem through-
out the church. Several attempts have been made to
have the whole plan substituted by others. In 1863 the
Presbytery of Lexington overtured the Assembly to this
effect :
In view of the doubt of many in our church in respect to the beneficiary
system of education as provided for the ministry, and believing that such a
system too long and generally pursued may attract a wrong class of candi-
dates with false motives and inferior qualifications, and may also repel another
class (unwarrantably, it is true, but yet as the actual experience of the church) ;
believing, also, that in this Southern confederacy young men of suitable gifts
can, in most cases, without injurious delay, pay their own expenses in study
by teaching and other useful pursuits, or by winning in fair competition cer-
western Advisory Committee ; Columbia was made the second seat as a place
relatively safe during the war, and to suit the convenience of Dr. Wilson,
the secretary of the committee, as that of Foreign Missions also, which was
located there. Baltimore was sought, among other reasons, on the ground
of its being a great commercial center. Atlanta had that argument in its
favor, in addition to its being nearer to the center of the Home Mission
field.
388 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
tain bursaries or scholarships that might be provided at our seats of learning ;
and that in a few cases imperatively needing help, private hands or individual
churches might more intelligently and watchfully bestow it — this Presbytery
hereby overtures the Assembly to appoint a committee, at its approaching
session, to revise the whole subject of beneficiary education, and to report to
the General Assembly next ensuing, i
In reply to this overture, the Assembly declared that
nothing short of the most cogent reasons would justify so
early an abandonment, or even any important modifica-
tion, of a scheme which had been incorporated with the
original structure of its ecclesiastical system. On the
other hand, it granted that the Board of Education of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America had
not, previously to 1861, received the general support of
the Southern portion of the church, and affirmed that there
was considerable dissatisfaction with the counterpart of
that board in the Southern Church, the Executive Com-
mittee of Education, and appointed a committee to report
on the subject to the next Assembly, with the hope that
if there was a better way of managing this valuable agency
that better way might be discovered. The committee
appointed, of which Dr. J. R. Wilson was the chairman,
presented an elaborate report to the Assembly of 1864.
It confined itself to a discussion of the question whether
that ''scheme of stipendiary schooling," practiced by the
mother-church and adopted by the Constituting Assembly
for the church of the Confederacy, was the " best to be
continued." In answer to this question it laid down as a
postulate that : ''Every candidate for the gospel ministry
doeSy in sundering the ties which connected him with secu-
lar avocations, so far dedicate himself to the service of God
in the church as entitles him to expect at her hands the
education which he may yet need for that service; and he
1 " Minutes of 1863," p. 127.
I
COMMITTEE OF EDUCATION. 389
iSy therefore^ not to be regarded by the churchy or by him-
self, in the light of an object of charity, but as a laborer
already occupying a place in the field of ministerial duty T ^
It took the ground that from the *' outset of the minister's
career — from the moment when he first put his hand to
the plow in the field of preparation — he is a claimant, not
upon the church's generosity, but upon her justice; not
upon her feeling of pity, but upon her sense of duty " ;
that " if they who come to her doors, seeking entrance
into her ministry, choose, or their immediate friends choose
for them, to afford all needful pecuniary aid to help them
onward to the period of their ordination, thi-s is another
matter"; that ''the church may accept this assistance,
but in so doing she is simply accepting a contribution
to her treasury, for which she ought to be grateful " ; that
** she has no authority to demand it " ; that he who has
been ** distinguished by being permitted to look forward
to unusual labors and uncommon sacrifices, and it may be
preeminent usefulness, in the cause of Christ, may well
afford to inaugurate his career by casting all his property,
as he does his talents, into the effort to prove worthy of
so peculiar a distinction " ; but that '* the point at issue
does not lie here " ; that *' it is not what the candidate
may esteem as his privilege, but what the church must
regard as her duty."
It acknowledged that grave difficulties beset the system,
but held that they were not insuperable in themselves, nor
fatal to the system, and that they were ** simply insepara-
ble adjuncts to it, as a system whose working has been
necessarily intrusted to the imperfection of human wis-
dom, and is applied to the weakness of human subjects." ^
The committee closed its report by recommending the
adoption of certain resolutions, of which the following was
1 " Minutes of 1864," p. 329. 2 '« Minutes of 1864," pp. 320-22.
390 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. hi.
the first : *' That, in the judgment of this General Assem-
bly, it is the duty of the church to pray unceasingly to
her Head for a large increase of candidates for the gospel
ministry ; and when they are received at her hands it is
her further duty to provide them with a suitable educa-
tion in the way of preparing them for their work, and to
provide it not as a matter of charity^ but of justice to all
parties concerned.'''^ The report was approved and the
resolutions adopted ; but as the committee had spent its
eftbrt in discussing the relation of the candidate to the
church and in proving merely that the church was morally
bound to support him, the Assembly had yet to answer
the question whether the support of the candidate should
be provided for and superintended by the General Assem-
bly, or by the Presbyteries, or in what way. In 1866 it
adopted another elaborate report, which asserted that the
plan of the Presbyteries' supporting the candidates had
been tried between 1806 and 1807 by the parent church
and had failed; that after 1807 a modified presbyterial
plan had proven unsatisfactory ; that, in consequence,
about 1820 three great organizations were brought into
existence to do the work, one of which was the Board of
Education ; that after this board, modified by the wakeful
circumspection of the fathers down to 1861, the Executive
Committee of Education had been formed; and that it
was unwise to go back to these schemes which had proven
unsatisfactory. In conclusion the report affirmed that
" to Presbyteries must always belong the great, the bind-
ing duty of recommending candidates for support from the
common treasury of the church " ; that if they failed in
this duty, if they were loose in its discharge, if they thrust
forward beneficiaries who were undeserving an educa-
tion at the hands of the church, with them alone lay the
1 " Minutes of 1864," p. 334.
COMMITTEE OF ED UCA TIOM. 3 9 1
blame, as to them, on the other hand, belonged the Mas-
ter's commendation for searching out and bringing forward
worthy men for this purpose ; that the chief responsibility
of the committee must attach to its one great office, of
judiciously expending the education funds of the church,
and its duty of keeping the Presbyteries advised of the
condition of the work it was prosecuting for them.^
This Assembly remodeled the constitution of the Exec-
utive Committee of Education. According to the origi-
nal constitution the Executive Committee had ''a general
oversight of the diligence and deportment of those who are
aided by it^^
According to the constitution of 1866, " no student shall
be supplied by this committee except upon the recommefida-
tion of the Presbytery to which he belongs, or its Executive
Committee of Education ; and all candidates shall be solely
responsible to their own Presbyteries. "^
Much that was justly offensive in the old constitution
was removed in making the new. The new constitution
leaves the whole responsibility for the candidates '* where
the constitution of the church places it — in the hands of
the Presbyteries." The committee can be no longer ** es-
teemed superior to the Presbyteries, clothed with authority
to revise their proceedings, or inquire into the propriety
thereof ; but is simply the executive agency through which
the Presbyteries perform this part of their work."*
In 1875-76 another attempt was made to substitute the
Assembly's plan of stipendiary education by remanding
the subject to the Presbyteries. But the attempt did not
succeed. No better plan could be then devised. The
1 " Minutes of 1866," p. 75.
2 " Minutes of 1861," p. 23. The italics are the compiler's.
3 " Minutes of 1866," p. 34. The words have been italicized by the
compiler.
* " Minutes of 1868," p. 294.
392 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
Assembly's scheme was again commended to the confi-
dence and support of the churches as the best practicable.
By the Assembly of 1893 the name of the Executive
Committee of Education has been changed to ** Committee
of Education for the Ministry." This was merely to con-
form the name specifically to the object of the committee.
No concomitant change in the constitution occurred.^
The support which the agency got in the way of contri-
butions between the years 1863 and 1866 was practically
nothing. This was owing, in part, to the fact that the
fate of the committee was in swspense during the first
two years of that period, and in part to the poverty of the
1 The reader may readily observe that the Assembly of 1864 adopted a
position which, though indorsed by the Assembly of 1866, was untenable,
viz. : That the church is bound, as a matter of justice to the candidate, to
educate him for the gospel ministry. If so, the church is bound to treat as a
minister one who has never been called to the ministry by any congregation
of believers, and one who may never be so called. The church is indeed
bound to propagate itself, bound to raise up a qualified ministry ; but not
bound to secure it in a given way. If it can get candidates to prepare them-
selves without aid by the church, that in certain circumstances may be the
preferable way. It is bound to God to secure a proper and sufficient minis-
try. It is not bound to a certain candidate, or set of candidates, prior to
contracting with them, to fit them for the ministry. On the other hand, the
candidate for the ministry who feels that he is called of God to the ministry,
that in the ministry he can probably serve God best, is bound to get an
education, whether the church will help him or not. He is bound to God
to do so. Now, if there is a great need for ministers — so great a need that
those candidates who are able to educate themselves do not suffice to supply
the lack — then it becomes the church's duty to God to take up young men
who feel called to the work, and are determined to get into it, but are held
back by poverty. Such young men when taken up are not eleemosynary
students, indeed. They are not, on the other hand, supported as a matter of
justice to them. They are supported as a matter of worship to God. They
take the funds not as charities to them ; they take the funds as funds which
the Church of God is bound to furnish God, that he may get ministers from
the poor, in absence of a sufficient number of ministers who have been able
to help themselves to an education.
This seems to be the real position taken by the Assembly of 1875, though
it did not distinctly repudiate the position of 1864 and 1866; for the Assem-
bly of 1875 indorsed the Assembly's plan as good, seeing the "necessity of
beneficiary education, in order to keep up the supply of ministers in the
Presbyterian Church." In fine, the constitution of the agency is excellent.
If the Presbyteries would do their duty in selecting candidates and explaining
their true relations to the funds, no evil consequence would follow.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 393
church and her multitude of crying needs. Thenceforth
the support has been better.
Though not at all connected with the Executive Com-
mittee of Education, yet because they are a part of the
great educational forces of the church it will be conven-
ient to take a brief survey, at this point, of the theologi-
cal seminaries and of the colleges in connection with the
Southern Presbyterian Church, as well as of certain col-
leges not in formal connection, but really recognized fac-
tors in this church.
To begin with the seminaries, there are six such in-
stitutions within the bounds, Presbyterian in origin and
patronage, some of them, however, not officially known to
the Assembly.
Union Theological Seminary, in Virginia, has been
until the present the mxost important of these institutions.
It was formally opened January i, 1824, with one pro-
fessor, the Rev. J. Holt Rice, D.D., and three students.
Funds were rapidly raised for an endowment. In 1826
the institution was taken under the care of the General
Assembly. The Synods of Virginia and of North Caro-
Hna, in the fall of the same year, took the place of Han-
over Presbytery in governing the seminary. In 1830-31
the number of students was about forty ; an additional pro-
fessor had been secured. The death of Dr. Rice, in 1831,
the troubles in the church which culminated in the divi-
sion of 1837-38, and which separated from the seminary
many of its active and zealous friends, changes of profes-
sors, and other causes, conspired to retard its growth and
abridge its fullness for more than a score of years. Mean-
while a third professorship, that of ecclesiastical history
and polity, was established in 1835; ^^^ ^ fourth, that
of biblical introduction and New Testament literature, in
394 ^-^^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. in.
1853. Through zealous efforts of friends its endowment
was gradually increased. Its funds were much cut down
by the war ; but it soon rallied, and has been making a
steady growth until the present. The last report of the
treasurer (May, 1893) shows that there is now invested in
the name of the corporation $303,298.24. Besides, the in-
stitution owns about eighty acres of land ; five residences for
professors; a main building, which contains a handsome
chapel, lecture-rooms, dormitories, and a refectory; three
additional buildings for dormitories; a superior library
building, with a fine library in it, and a gymnasium.^
Between 1881 and 1891 a chair of English Bible and pas-
toral theology was established. The annual attendance
has steadily grown ; there are now over seventy students.
Some of its distinguished teachers have been the honored
Dr. George A. Baxter, the scholarly Dr. F. S. Sampson,
*' the profoundest American theologian," Dr. R. L. Dab-
ney, that most clever exponent of church polity. Dr. T. E.
Peck, and the distinguished young savant Dr. W. W.
Moore. Dr. B. M. Smith reendowed the seminary after
the war.
Columbia Seminary was established in 1828, by the
Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, its title being then
** The Theological Seminary of South Carolina and Geor-
gia." It is now under the immediate joint control of the
Synods of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.
Its relation to the General Assembly is identical with that
of Union Seminary, in Virginia.
Classes were first organized in 183 1, with Dr. Thomas
Goulding and Dr. George Howe as professors. In 1833
Dr. A. W. Leland became connected with the seminary,
but Dr. Goulding died in 1834, so that only two professors
1 See historical statement in " Catalogue of Union Theological Seminary,
Virginia, 1892-93." Compare the historical statement in the " Constitution
and Plan of Seminary," published in 1892.
TUSCALOOSA INSTITUTE. 395
remained to conduct the classes. Save for another brief
period, no addition was made to the staff until 1849.
From that time till i860 improvement was rapid. In
i860 there were five professors — among them Dr. James
H. Thornwell — and over fifty students in the seminary.
From 1866 to the present time the work of the seminary
has been carried on with various changes and interruptions.
In 1863 the property of every kind belonging to the
seminary amounted to $277,940.81. Considerably over
half of this vanished with the Confederate Government.
The seminary subsequently had a long series of ups and
downs. At present it has interest-bearing funds to the
amount of $2 10,000. The professors' houses and seminary
buildings are valued at about $50,000. The library is a
very fine one. The preeminently great name among its
teachers is that of Thornwell.
Tuscaloosa Institute. — In 1877 this school was estab-
lished by the General Assembly, and located at Tusca-
loosa, Ala. ; and was opened for work, with seven stu-
dents, the first session. The Executive Committee has
been authorized by the Assembly of 1893 to move the
Tuscaloosa Institute to Birmingham, Ala., whenever it
seems advisable and practicable to do so without detri-
ment to the cause for which the institute was founded.
Birmingham is the center of a large and increasingly in-
telligent and well-to-do colored population.
The institute is under the control of the General Assem-
bly, but its work is directed by the " Executive Committee
for the Education of Colored Ministers." Its actual work
and discipline were conducted by that devoted servant
of the church, the Rev. C. A. Stillman, D.D., and chosen
helpers, until the present session, the Rev. A. L. Phillips
being now superintendent. The whole course of instruc-
tion centers about the English Bible. The Standards of
396 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. hi.
the Southern Presbyterian Church are faithfully taught.
The sum total of the students taught in the institute to
the end of the session 1892-93 is 152 — 93 Presbyterians,
45 Methodists, and 14 Baptists.
The Divinity School of the Southwestern Presbyterian
University^ at Clarksville, Tenn., was organized in June,
1885. ''It is under the same government as the other
schools in the university, viz., the board of directors ap-
pointed by the Synods of Alabama, Arkansas, Memphis,
Nashville, and Mississippi." The last session was the most
prosperous in its history, there being thirty-three students.
Dr. Joseph R. Wilson was the first teacher of theology.
The Austin School of Theology was founded in 1884 by
that distinguished and venerable theologian and philoso-
pher, the Rev. R. L. Dabney, D.D., LL.D. This has been
an incidental labor of his blind old age, and has been at-
tended with tremendous difficulties, but followed by many
blessings to the church in Texas. It is under the care of
the Central Texas Presbytery.
The Rev. Dr. Isaac Long did a work of similar character
at Batesville, Ark.
The Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary has
been organized during the present year by the associated
Synods of Kentucky and Missouri. It is placed under the
control of the General Assembly somewhat more imme-
diately and directly than Union or Columbia. ** Should
the Assembly see reason at any time to object to any of
the acts of the directors or any of the other authorities of
the institution, it may send down in writing to the direc-
tors or Synods its opinion in the premises; but it shall
have no controlling negative except in the election or
transfer of the professors, nor right to originate any meas-
ures for the seminary. "1 According to the constitution
1 Article II. in the constitution.
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY. 397
of Union Seminary the Assembly can reach the seminary
only through the Synods.^
The control which the Assembly has over the theologi-
cal seminaries was formally defined by the Assembly of
1886 as involving such jurisdiction as will ''in every case
enable the Assembly, through the proper channels of
authority, to keep all such institutions free from every-
thing inconsistent with the spirit of our system, and, of
course, free from all teaching inconsistent with the Word
of God as expounded in our Standards. "^ Its precise
relation to the individual seminaries " differs somewhat,
according to the constitution and practice of the institu-
tions as ratified by the Assembly."^
The following colleges and universities must be men-
tioned, not theological, but avowedly or virtually Presby-
terian in their character and management.
Washington mid Lee University,^ at Lexington, Va., was
founded in 1774, on the nucleus of a school taught by the
Rev. John Brown, pastor of New Providence Church. This
was an enterprise of Hanover Presbytery. It was subse-
quently removed to Timber Ridge, and later, in 1 793, to a site
near Lexington. It was thenceforth till 1797 called " Lib-
erty Hall." The trustees had been incorporated in 1782,
and authorized to confer degrees. In 1797 Washington
donated to the institution one hundred shares of *' James
River Canal Company," which the General Assembly of
Virginia had wished to give him. The trustees at once,
in compliment to General Washington, changed the name
1 The corresponding statement in the constitution of Union and other
seminaries reads: " Should the Assembly see reason at any time to object,
etc., it shall send down in writing to the Synods its opinion in the prem-
ises, but shall have no controlling negative, nor originate any measures for
the management of the seminary." — " Constitution and Plan of Theological
Seminary," p. 10.
2 " Minutes of 1886," p. 43. 3 Jbid.
* See historical statement in "The Catalogue of Washington and Lee
University, 1892-93, Lexington, Va."
398 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
of the institution to Washington Academy. The school
thenceforth grew apace in usefulness and renown. At the
close of the war the institution was again without income
or credit, but under the presidency of Gen. R. E. Lee again
burst forth in a rapid career of expansion.
The General Assembly of Virginia in 1871 changed the
name of the institution to its present corporate title, ** The
Washington and Lee University." The institution has
continued to grow rapidly. It now has an invested en-
dowment of $630,999.78, yielding an annual income of
$36,519.97. It has an able faculty of thirteen full pro-
fessors and six instructors, and two hundred and forty-
one students.
The institution has been separated from all formal rela-
tions with the church ; nevertheless, it has still in its board
of trustees and its faculty a very large majority of Presby-
terians, and it is one of the principal feeders of the Pres-
byterian ministry in Virginia.
Hampden Sidney College^ in Prince Edward County,
Va., was opened in 1775-76. It owes its origin to Chris-
tian patriotism. Hanover Presbytery, the sole representa-
tive of the Presbyterian faith and order in all Virginia and
her western territory, whose members in 1774 did not
exceed ten, determined to establish a school also for the
Piedmont and South Side regions of Virginia. The Rev.
Samuel Stanhope Smith had been the most zealous pro-
moter of the enterprise. He became its first president
and organizer.
The college obtained a most liberal charter in 1783, and
has enjoyed "an illustrious career of usefulness." Long
lists of distinguished statesmen, judges, professors, and
ministers whom she has schooled might be given. Her
sixth president. Rev. Moses Hoge, D.D., 1807-20, was by
appointment of the Synod of Virginia professor of theol-
DAVIDSON COLLEGE. 399
ogy ; and out of the want thus supplied and enlarged
sprang the demand which was and could only be satisfied
by the establishment of Union Theological Seminary, in
1824. The college is not rich, but has always maintained
a high grade of scholarship, and has exerted a peculiarly
ennobling and refining influence on the students. At
present the teaching force numbers eight men: six full
professors, one assistant professor, and one fellow. The
students number about one hundred and fifty. The en-
dowment is sufficient for an economical support. The
president, the Rev. Richard Mcllwaine, D.D., with tireless
energy and good success, is bringing the college forward
day by day, by new buildings, new appliances, etc.
Davidson College, in Mecklenburg County, N. C, was
founded in 1837. It was at first opened as a manual labor
institution, but the plan did not prove workable. Accord-
ing to the constitution of the college, no one is eligible as
trustee, professor, or teacher who is not a member of the
Presbyterian Church. During all the years of its course
it has been remarkable for its able faculty ; it has stim-
ulated a thorough scholarship. Among its alumni are
many distinguished men in secular Hfe. More than one
third of its graduates have entered the ministry. The
college is under the control of a board of trustees ap-
pointed by the Presbyteries of the Synods of North Caro-
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.^ The faculty
contains ten professors and instructors. The student
body numbers one hundred and fifty-three.^ The endow-
ment amounts to $109,000.
Southwestern Presbyterian University, — A meeting of
commissioners from five Synods, viz., Alabama, Missis-
1 Compare Semi-Centenary Addresses, Davidson College, 1887. Raleigh,
N. C. : E. M. Uzzel, Steam Printer and Binder, 1888. See especially Dr.
Rumple's Address.
2 Session of 1892-93. See " Catalogue of 1892-93."
400 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap, iil
sippi, Arkansas, Nashville, and Memphis, had been held in
May, 1873, to plan for a great common university. The
plan formed was adopted by their several Synods and
by the Synod of Texas, and they appointed two directors
each. In 1874, after receiving many applications for the
university, they finally fixed upon Clarksville as the place,
and Stuart College, which was already a school of local
repute, under the care of the Synod of Nashville, as the
nucleus of further operations.
In June, 1879, the board of directors abolished the cur-
riculum and reorganized the school on the plan of coordi-
nate schools and elective courses. The endowment affords
an economical support. The faculty, including the profes-
sors of the divinity school, consists of nine full professors.
The attendance of students during the session 1892-93
was one hundred and thirty-five. A distinguished feature
of the plan of the university is that " in connection with
every course there shall be comprehensive and faithful
biblical training, so as to make an intelligent Scriptural
faith a controlling principle in the university."
Central University. — At a meeting of the Synod of
Kentucky in 1 871 resolutions were passed looking to the
immediate endowment and equipment of a college. The
Synod had despaired of regaining its rights in Center
College; but a new movement rose out of the general
conviction in the minds of men of intelligence that there
was need of a ufiiversity. A number of the alumni of
Center College, and friends of learning and of the church,
met in convention at Lexington on the 7th of May,
1872, organized themselves into a permanent associa-
tion, and on the following day tendered to the Synod
their co5peration for establishing such an institution. The
offer was accepted. A charter was agreed upon by the
joint committee of the Synod and the association, and was
WESTMINSTER COLLEGE. 4OI
adopted by the two bodies severally. '' By the charter
the donors of the endowment own and control the univer-
sity under the title of * The Central University,' and they
elect their successors from among the alumni of the insti-
tution and its liberal benefactors." Two hundred thousand
dollars were soon subscribed, and this was regarded as suf-
ficient to justify the opening of the school. The university
opened its first session in 1874; with varying fortunes, it
has had on the whole an unusual career of expansion and
solid usefulness.
The founders of the university aimed at a university
proper. There are now, in addition to the College of Phi-
losophy, Science, and Letters at Richmond, the Hospital
College of Medicine and the Louisville College of Dentist-
ry, each at Louisville, Ky. The faculties of these several
colleges number respectively 14, 18, 12; and the student
body, 201, 97, 46.
The Board of Curators is establishing at central points
in the State university high-schools. One of these, the
Jackson Collegiate Institute, at Jackson, Ky., has two hun-
dred and two students. Hardin Collegiate Institute, at
Elizabethtown, Ky., another, has forty-six students, and
there are others in successful operation.^
Westminster College, at Fulton, Mo., originated in action
taken by the Synod of Missouri in 1849. A charter was
obtained in 1853. The war shook the college like a cy-
clone, and swept away most of its endowment. In 1868
it had only about $30,000 endowment, which was bur-
dened with eighty scholarships affording free tuition to
as many students. But the college has struggled bravely
on, and all the while maintained a high standard of scholar-
ship. Last session was the most prosperous in its history.
1 " Catalogue of 1893," pp. 4, 5, 51, 52, 57, 59. Z. E. Smith's " History
of Kentucky," pp. 422-551.
402 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. hi.
There are twelve men in the able faculty, under the presi-
dency of Dr. Wm. H. Marquess, Dr. E. C. Gordon being
its vice-president. There are one hundred and fifty stu-
dents. The endowment amounts to about $230,000,
though a part of it is somewhat encumbered temporarily.
Austin College, at Sherman, Tex., was chartered by the
legislature in 1849. In 1850 the college began its career
at Huntsville. In 1876 it was removed to Sherman. For
a long time it was overwhelmed with financial troubles,
but it has now emerged, and has an endowment of about
$100,000. Under the present president, the Rev. S. M.
Luckett, D.D., the patronage has increased fourfold. The
institution was at first under the control of Brazos Presby-
tery. Later it passed under the control of the Synod of
Texas, which now elects the members of the board of
trustees.
King College, at Bristol, Tenn., was opened in 1868, "a
child of necessity." It is not yet out of the financial
throes of its birth and earlier years, but has done much
good work for the church and state. More than half its
graduates have entered the Presbyterian ministry. Many
of them have reached eminence by their ability and schol-
arship. Its curators are appointed by Presbyteries in
Tennessee and Virginia.
The Arkansas College, at Bates ville. Ark., received its
charter in 1872. Dr. Isaac Jasper Long was its first self-
sacrificing president. The college has accomplished a
grand work for the church and state in Arkansas. Prom-
inent features: solidity and thoroughness of the work
done ; coeducation ; prominence of the Bible in its teach-
ing. More than a third of its graduates have become
ministers.
South Carolina College, at Clinton, S, C, is a promising
young institution.
PUB Lie A TION. 403
Many female schools are doing their beneficent work
for the church and for the homes throughout the land.
Some of these are avowedly Presbyterian and under the
oversight of Presbyteries. Some of them, while not form-
ally Presbyterian, are really so. There are also many
Presbyteral academical schools. There has been some
little discussion as to the right of the church to establish
Presbyteral schools, colleges, and the like. But the con-
secrated good sense of the people, and the demand which
the Scriptures make that the church should raise up an
able ministry, have carried the church over all opposition.
There are several eleemosynary institutions under the
control of boards of trustees appointed by church courts.
There are others directed and supported by Presbyterians.
One of the most widely known is the Thornwell Orphan-
age, at Clinton, S. C. This is under the care of the Rev.
Dr. Wm. P. Jacobs. It is without resources or endow-
ment, dependent on Him who clothes the lilies and feeds
the ravens. It has under its roofs, in rearing for useful
manhood and womanhood, over a hundred orphans. Some
have already left its walls for the ministry. One is a mis-
sionary in Japan. The General Assembly has undertaken
a '* Home and School " for the education of the orphans
of Presbyterian ministers and missionaries, at Fredericks-
burg, Va. The school is well manned, and solicits the
patronage of the public on the grounds of its superior ad-
vantages. The people of the church, sometimes in asso-
ciation with other Christians, have opened and maintained
retreats for the sick and houses for the destitute of all
classes.
4. Publication.
The constitution given the Executive Committee of
Publication in 1861 remains the same to-day, with the
exception of an unimportant change or two. For the sake
404 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
of convenience in the transaction of business, a separate
charter of incorporation for the Committee of Publication
was obtained in 1873-75. The separate incorporation was
against the preferred policy of the church, but the guarded
terms of the charter — forbidding the idea that the corpora-
tion could ever become independent of the church — and
the business, convenience rendered the church contented.^
One of the first heavy calls upon the committee was for
literature for the army. In 1863-64 it pubHshed fifteen
thousand copies of an army hymn-book. In addition to
tracts, it put into circulation in the army over fifteen thou-
sand volumes obtained from the Religious Tract Society
of London and other sources ; and it published " The
Soldier's Visitor," consisting mainly of tracts issued in
sheet form and circulated free of charge.
It has been the duty of the committee from 1863 on to
make a judicious selection of religious books wherever
they may be found, and stamp its imprimatur upon them,
that the people may be aided in helpful purchases. It has
a respectable list of its own publications, too, embracing
the imposing works of Dr. Thornwell and Dr. Dabney, as
well as more popular works of scarcely less conspicuous
men. In the list of its publications are to be found some
works of an evangelical, but not distinctly denominational,
character. The general oversight of all the Sabbath-
school interests of the church, and the advancement of
the work in all practicable ways, has been laid on this
committee.^
It has been a special work of this committee to publish
the " Children's Friend," which has a Sunday-school feat-
1 The committee has always been located at Richmond, Va. The secre
taries have been: Rev. Wm. Brown, D.D., 1861-63; Rev. John Leyburne,
D.D., 1863-65; Rev. Wm. Brown, D.D.,/r^ tefu, 1865; Rev. T. E. Baird,
1865-77; Rev. W. A. Campbell, pro tern, 1877; Rev. J. K. Hazen, 1877
to the present. 2 "Minutes of 1878," p. 651.
COLPORTAGE. 405
ure, and the '' Earnest Worker," devoted since 1877 " ex-
clusively to the exposition of Scripture lessons and other
subjects promotive of Sabbath- school work." It has also
issued " Lesson Helps" and *' Lesson QuarterHes " for sev-
eral years, and other similar publications.^
During a considerable part of its existence the com-
mittee has had the burden of colportage on its shoulders.
In 1888 it undertook to sustain a colporteur in each Synod,
a committee of the Synod to choose the colporteur and
take the oversight of the work. This plan has been in
operation from that time to the present, though for want
of funds it has failed of entire fulfillment.
The church has never been satisfied with the small
amount of colportage work done. While it has thrown
the burden of it on the committee, and has required the
committee, in addition to this colportage, to make gratui-
tous grants to ministers, churches, and Sunday-schools
within certain limits, it has not given a large and kindly
support to this important agency. This indisposition to
support the committee has been owing to many causes.
From 1866 to 1877 the work was badly managed.^ When,
however, the present secretary took hold of the work, the
course of its history entered on a happy change. For a
good many years the work of colportage and the gratui-
tous distributions of publications have more than consumed
the annual contributions from the churches to the cause ;
1 " It is interesting to note the co5peration in publishing a Sunday-school
paper with the Reformed Church in America." — " Minutes of 1876," p. 222.
2 From November i, 1866, to October, 1877, the cause of publication
received $125,441.01. During that period the salaries of the secretary and
other employees amounted to $70,229.17. And on October i, 1877, the
total available assets of the Publication Committee amounted to $53,466.17,
and the total liabilities, $39,993.58. This was after the church had been
working for years to endow the committee, and after it was supposed to have
an endowment approaching $50,000, The committee was brought to this
bad pass by serious mismanagement on the part of the secretary, Dr. Baird,
who seems to have had no business methods.
406 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. hi.
yet the secretary is able to report in 1893 the net assets
of the committee as $98,436.85.
Probably the fact that the publication cause is now so
great a success keeps some from contributing. Probably
they think that, seeing it is on such good footing, it should
devote a larger percentage of its income to benevolent
work. Whatever the cause, Dr. Hazen is worthy of all
praise for the way in which he has conducted the work.
Though not under this committee's care in any sense, it
is convenient at this point to glance at the journals of the
church, which advocate the principles, give information
concerning the work, and incite the people to a godly zeal
in behalf of the church. Of these, mention must be made
first of the weeklies — such as *' The Christian Observer"
of Louisville, '' The Central Presbyterian " of Richmond,
" The North Carolina Presbyterian " of Wilmington, '' The
Southern Presbyterian " of Clinton, '* The St. Louis Pres-
byterian," *' The Southwestern Presbyterian " of New Or-
leans. There are others. These weeklies are edited with
varying degrees of ability. Each one is devoted chiefly
to building up Presbyterianism in its own region, though
striving in a more general way for the advancement of the
whole denomination, and, indeed, of the whole church
throughout the earth. The church needs sadly a consoli-
dation of some of its weeklies. It wants one great weekly,
fresh and able. As matters are, the short subscription-
lists of most of these papers forbids such a staff as the
church stands in need of.
** The Presbyterian Quarterly," edited by Dr. George
Summey, assisted by Drs. Strickler and Barnett, is pub-
lished in Richmond, Va. It is an able and scholarly pub-
lication.^
*' The Union Seminary Magazine " is doing a good and
1 Its writers are drawn too largely from others than the Southern Church,
however. The absence of publishers and the poverty so general throughout
THE CHARTER OF THE ASSEMBLY. 407
growing work, and coming into a larger degree of favor
with each session. It is designed to be an organ chiefly
for the facuhy and students of that seminary.
The Home Mission Committee has a special organ,
" The Home Missionary," ^ through which it brings its
great causes before the people. This sheet has been
much improved of late. The Foreign Mission Committee
at Nashville issues " The Missionary," one of the ablest of
missionary publications.
The earnestness of the Assembly in the support of all
the agencies whose review we have now completed is evi-
denced by a host of practical enactments, touching the
duty of Presbyteries to incite all their churches to con-
tribute to all the causes, touching the duty of ministers to
enlighten their people on the grace and duty of giving,
touching times and modes of collections, etc.^
5. The Charter of the Assembly.
The form of the charter of the board of trustees of the
Assembly sought in 1861, obtained in 1866 from the State
of North Carolina, has already been indicated.^ It was
amended in 1871-72 so as to enable the trustees to hold
the funds which might be contributed for the relief of the
widows and children of deceased ministers, and for other
eleemosynary objects of the church. The several execu-
tive committees of the General Assembly, with the excep-
tion of the Executive Committee of Publication, have no
separate corporate existence to this day. The board of
trustees holds all the property of the General Assembly.^
the bounds of the church have not encouraged writing for publication, even
in a relatively permanent form. The review writers should be discovered
and developed,
1 Published at Atlanta, Ga.
2 Alexander's " Digest," pp. 301-317. 3 gee Chapter II., p. 346.
4 The practical relations between the board of trustees and the com-
mittees maybe defined as follows; "When the trustees shall receive any
408 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iii.
6. Voluntary Agencies.
The theoretical position of the church as a whole has
been that the church, properly organized, is alone the
divinely instituted and sufficient agency for the evangeli-
zation of the world. As to societies without the church,
if they do not undertake functions which belong exclu-
sively to the church, and if their objects and methods
are morally and religiously good, they may be approved.
Accordingly the Assembly indorsed the National Bible
Society of the Confederate States, and has, since 1866,
cordially commended the Americajt Bible Society to the
ministers and churches, and recommended contributions
to it.i
On the subject of young people's societies, missionary
societies, etc., there has of late years been much talk. The
present trend of thought is in the direction of '' societies
in the church " and a part of it — that is, a perfected organ-
gift, devise, or bequest without direction from the donor as to the particular
use or charity for which it is designed, the same shall be retained by them
until the meeting of the next General Assembly. When the donor declares
the particular use and the manner of its use, the trustees shall pay over the
same to the appropriate committees." — " Minutes of 1873," p. 321.
" When a bequest has been made to the General Assembly, to be paid to
two or more of the executive committees of the church, and the terms of the
bequest do not specify the proportion according to which the amount of
the bequest shall be divided among the committees, the board of trustees is
authorized and instructed to divide the amount between the several executive
committees for whom the bequest is intended according to the proportion of
the annual contribution of the churches (excluding legacies) to these com-
mittees for the three years next preceding the time when the amount is
divided." — " Minutes of 1S86," p. 55.
1 The precise attitude of the church toward this society may be clearly
seen in an excerpt from a report of a committee made to the General Assem-
bly of 1866, in regard to the church's relation to voluntary associations,
which reads as follows : "Although it is the opinion of your committee that
this society ought to be composed of representatives of different churches,
appointed through their constitutional forms, yet as there is nothing in its
constitution to prevent the free action in every church in carrying forward
the work, and as its organization is simply for the printing and circulation
of the Holy Scriptures, your committee recommends its countenance and
support."—" Minutes of 1866," p. 38.
VOLUNTARY AGENCIES. 409
ization with every member of the church in such relation
to the whole rest of the members as to be brought to work
and to do his work. The trend is against *' societies in the
church but not a pai't of it'' — societies which straddle this
and other denominations, or which cannot be made to
express Presbyterianism. The church believes that the
Lord Jesus Christ is King, that his people are his servants,
not his confidential advisers, and that the future of the
church will be brighter just in proportion as the church
follows the plan of the Bible church.^
1 Compare Dr. C. R. Vaughan's article in the " Presbyterian Quarterly,"
July, 1893.
CHAPTER IV.
CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION AND LIFE OF THE
CHURCH.
I. The Doctrine.
It will be remembered that the Constituting Assembly-
declared '* that the Confession of Faith, the Longer and
Shorter Catechisms, the Form of Government, the Book
of Discipline, and the Directory of Worship," which to-
gether made up the constitution of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America, were '' the con-
stitution of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate
States of America."
The church has continued well satisfied with her Con-
fession of Faith. Such changes as have been made at all
have touched only the accidents of the Creed. With the
heart and soul of the Westminster Confession the church
has been so well pleased that while other churches are
trying to tear the very liver out of it, this church has been
attempting to anchor herself more securely to it. Accord-
ing to the mother-church's Adopting Act of 1788, the
Form of Government and Discipline and the Confession of
Faith as then ratified were to continue to be the constitu-
tion and the confession of faith and practice, unless two
thirds of the Presbyteries under the care of the General
Assembly should propose alterations or amendments, and
such alterations should be agreed to and enacted by the
General Assembly.^
1 Baird's " Digest," p. 36, % 16.
410
CONDITIONS OF ALTERING THE CONFESSION, 41 I
In the Assembly of 1861 an overture was presented
proposing to make it much more difficult to change the
constitution. It was referred to the Committee on Revi-
sion, and does not appear to have come before a sub-
sequent Assembly. It was an exaggerated statement of
the real position of the church. The part of the overture
relating to the Confession the church was probably ready
for in 1 86 1, but it was not ready for that touching changes
in the Form of Government. However, the church rested
with the Adopting Act of 1788 until 1883, when the As-
sembly requested all the Presbyteries under its care to
send up answers to the following questions to the next
Assembly : '' Shall Chapter VII. of the Form of Govern-
ment be amended by adding a third section to read as
follows : 'III. Amendments to the Confession of Faith and
to the Catechism of this church may be made only upon
the recommendation of one Assembly, the concurrence of
at least three fourths of the Presbyteries, and the enact-
ment of the same by a subsequent Assembly ' ? " ^ A
large majority of the Presbyteries returned an affirmative
answer, whereupon the Assembly of 1884 resolved ** that
this amendment be and is hereby enacted as paragraph 3,
Chapter VII., Form of Government."^
During the years 1885-86 inclusive, the new paragraph
was itself amended by adding to it the following words,
viz. : ** This paragraph shall be amended or altered only
in the way in which itself provides for amendment of
the Confession of Faith and the Catechism of the church."
Thus had the old method of amending the Confession
been superseded by a more tedious one. A similar but
rnore moderate change had been meanwhile wrought in
the method of amending the Form of Government.
While the formal development of the Creed has been
1 " Minutes of 1883," p. 50. 2 " Minutes of 1884," p. 248.
412 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. iv.
next to nothing, it is believed that in a thorough-going
comprehension of the great truths of revelation embodied
in the Confession, and in their elaboration and defense, the
Southern Presbyterian Church has taken no mean part.
To prove that such is the case it is only necessary to
mention the works of such great masters in theology and
kindred departments of study as those of Drs. J. H. Thorn-
well and R. L. Dabney. Dabney has irradiated with the
torch of thinking genius almost every phase of theol-
ogy, anthropology, and soteriology ; and Thornwell, with a
chaste splendor of diction, has illuminated by a marvelous
insight many of the perplexing problems in theology and
in*^ anthropology . Besides, there are many stars whose
shining had been counted brilliant but for these suns. In
the department of exegetical theology Dr. W. W. Moore
is justly held in high esteem by the church.
2. The Polity.
The church undertook to revise its Form of Government
and Book of Discipline as early as 1861. The Constitut-
ing Assembly appointed a very able committee for the
purpose, and instructed it to report to the next Assembly.
The church's sense of the need of revising these parts of
its Standards is well expressed in the first report which the
committee was able to make as to its work. That report
says:
The committee are deeply impressed with the desirableness of our possess-
ing as a church a more scientific statement of the Scripture doctrine of church
government than is found in our present form. The subject has been largely
discussed and the doctrine much developed in various directions since our
present form vi^as adopted, and the book is no longer abreast of the advanced
stage of the doctrine as it is actually held among us. For example : the
book does not contain any statement of what are the radical principles of our
system, except a very imperfect one, introduced in a mere footnote. Again,
our doctrine of the courts receives no adequate presentation, nor is anything
found in the book respecting the duties in full of the different office-bearers.
REVISION OF BOOK OF CHURCH ORDER. 413
Again, the evangelist does not appear in any part of the book, except in a
clause appended to the chapter on ordination, and in the general reference
made to that most important ofhce in the chapter on missions. Then, again,
the method prescribed in the book for setting apart ruling elders and deacons
without the imposition of hands is clearly unscriptural ; and the remarkable
omission cries aloud for the consideration of the church, l
It was owing to the vicissitudes of war that this report
was not made until 1864. Along with it was handed the
draft of the revision so far as the committee had proceeded
— the Rules of Parliamentary Order and Canons of Dis-
cipline. Two years later the committee's work on the
Form of Government was completed. Their report was
adopted and sent down to the Presbyteries. A very large
majority of the Presbyteries informed the Assembly of
1867 of their appreciation of the labors of the Committee
of Revision, asked to have the results of their labors saved,
but emphatically declined to adopt the revision.
There was a great diversity of views with reference to
the proposed changes. The committee was therefore dis-
continued.^ The church, however, was not satisfied with
the old Form of Government and Discipline. During the
years 1869-73 another effort to secure a revision was
made ; but this effort, too, and for reasons which caused
the previous failure, was destined to prove a miscarriage.
The results, nevertheless, were again stored in the archives
of the Assembly.^
Finally, between the years 1876-79 inclusive, the suc-
cessful effort was made. A revision was accomplished
which met, to a degree, the want of the church as indi-
cated in the report of the committee in 1864. The revi-
sion is on the whole a very worthy work. Had the only
result been the erasure of the unscripturally broad de-
1 " Minutes of 1864," p. 24. 2 " Minutes of 1867," pp. 149 f!.
3 " Minutes of 1869," pp. 377 fT., and p. 396; 1870, pp. 518 ff. ; 1873,
p. 328.
414 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. iv.
markation between the minister and ruling elder which
the old book made, it had been justified; but the new
makes a fairly adequate statement of the ruling elder's
rights and duties. It brings out with greatly increased
clearness the deacon's duties and relations, and magnifies
his office after a biblical fashion. It recognizes at least
quasi deaconesses, which is a step in the right direction.
If women had always been accorded the privilege of so
serving the church, there might be less of obnoxious
womanism among the churches to-day. It articulately
asserts that the church is the " agency which Christ has
ordained for the edification and government of his people,
for the propagation of the faith, and the evangelization of
the world." As this Is the biblical and correct position,
the church was doing much to become able to take subse-
quently the correct attitude toward the hosts of partial
substitutes for the church which well-meaning but precipi-
tate, rash, and irreverent men have proposed.
Some amendments to the paragraph on the evangelist
might well be made, however. The church is somewhat
hampered by the hmited powers accorded this officer in
the foreign field.
The revised book Is more distinctly Presbyterian, and
issued from a more solid conviction oijure divino Presby-
terianism, than the old book. Occasional but not substan-
tive amendments to the revised book have been made
from time to time since its adoption.
Of the men who have watched and directed the devel-
opment of church polity, special mention must be made
of the names of Drs. J. H. Thornwell, B. M. Palmer, and
T. E. Peck. To Thornwell is due credit for the full recog-
nition of the rights of the ruling elder. Palmer has kept be-
fore the church the truth that the tenet of the headship of
Christ involves the doctrine of the sufficiency of the or-
FORMS OF PRAYER— REVISION OF DIRECTORY. 415
dained church and the impiety of any substitution therefor.
Dr. Peck and Dr. Vaughan have done special service in
bringing to light the functions of the diaconate.
3. The Worship.
The external worship of the church has changed but
little. Here and there in the church there is an observa-
ble tendency toward a less simple worship ; and respon-
sive readings and prayers in which the congregations take
oral part, elaborate and unworshipful music, etc., come into
vogue. This is very rare.
In 1864-65 Colonel J. T. L. Preston, of Lexington, Va.,
and others endeavored to have introduced into the Direc-
tory of Worship '* a few Scriptural and well-considered
forms of prayer, requiring responses on the part of the
congregation, the use of such forms to be optional on the
part of the pastors." The attempt met with overwhelm-
ing defeat; and though repeated in 1872, it found its
Waterloo in the same year. This has been the most
prominent effort looking toward a liturgy. Mention may,
however, be made of the effort to have ** a directory of
the oblations" prepared, in 1868, and of that to have a
burial service prepared, in 1880. But the tendency to-
ward forms of worship has been very small, unless you
see in the desire to revise the old Directory unrest with
its simplicity, which is not very probably true.
As early as 1864 inquiry was made as to whether it
was then expedient to revise the Directory of Worship.
The work was never undertaken, however, in earnest till
1879, at which time the revision of the Form of Gov-
ernment and the Book of Discipline had been completed.
The Assembly of 1879 appointed an able committee, which
was once reconstituted, was succeeded by an equally able
committee, which in its turn was reconstituted. This
4l6 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. iv.
committee gave place in 1892 to a new committee, the
work of which, as modified by the last Assembly's criti-
cism, is now in the hands of the Presbyteries, for their
reception or rejection, and will probably be adopted.
The revised Directory remains entirely a directory. It
is not more a book of prescribed forms than before. Its
superiority over the old is in its more copious suggestions,
especially about the public profession of religion by new
converts and about administering baptism.
The church has shown a praiseworthy zeal in improving
its selections of hymns and Psalms.^
It is believed that the spirit of worship has not declined
during the church's independent history. There seems,
on the contrary, evidence to prove that it has deepened,
that worship is viewed more as something which is ex-
pressed by the output of the life. To illustrate : Giving
as an act of worship is kept in the forefront of the church
to-day. Dr. T. E. Peck had this burden, also, of the Lord
for his people and students. This instance is typical.
Worship is regarded generally as intended service.
The meaning and nature of the sacraments have been
kept in tolerable clearness before the people.^ The pro-
priety of special prayer and fasting on occasion has con-
tinued to be the common behef.^ But it must be said
that the church's attitude toward the Sabbath is not
worthy. Her great teachers and her courts have uttered
no uncertain sound. Few churches have had such stanch
1 It revised its " Hymn-Book" between i86i and 1866; revised and pub-
lished its " Hymn and Tune Book " by 1873. In 1882, as many of the con-
gregations had begun to use the " Hymns and Tunes " of Dr. C. S. Robinson,
the Assembly placed its imprimatur on that book. (Alexander's " Digest,"
pp. 357-360.) The Assembly of 1893 gave a similar indorsement and
approval to Dr. R. P. Kerr's " The Hymns of the Ages." (" Minutes of
1893," p. 15.)
2 Alexander's " Digest," pp. 345-354.
3 Ibid., pp. 355, 356.
TEMPTATION TO LAX LIFE. 417
defenders of the Sabbath.^ But the Sunday newspapers,
Sunday mails, and Sunday railroad trains, etc., have had
an influence as potent as pernicious ; and the protests
which the church courts and preachers have made against
Sabbath desecration are monuments of very considerable
dereliction in respect to Sabbath observances on the part
of the church-members.2 Nor can a church long main-
tain its worshipfulness after losing its reverence for the
day especially set apart of God for the purpose of his
worship.
Family worship has not made considerable advance-
ment, but the church diligently inculcates the duty, and
some progress is observable.
4. The Social and Moral Life of the Church.
It is the common observation that war and pestilence
are followed by general ungodliness. A priori it would
be expected that man would be sobered by the destruc-
tion of his fellows, and led to set his aff'ections on God by
the evident instability and insufficiency of all creature ex-
istence ; that he would flee from the carnage and chaos
around him and make for the source of all beauty and
order. But it is not so. The harrowed inhabitants of the
land cut up and devastated by war are apt to betray a
fondness for trifling and belittHng amusements, and a
slavish grasping for the meanest muniments of temporal
good.
If we do not find a strong tendency to worldly amuse-
ments and to dishonest business methods in the South
during and after the Civil War, and during the horrible
period of reconstruction, we shall therein remark a nota-
1 " Minutes of 1863," pp. 16, 164; 1878, pp. 628, 641 ff.
2 " Minutes of 1890," p. 91 ; 1893, p. 73 et passim.
41 8 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. iv.
ble strength of character, a wonderful work of God's grace
in the hearts of his people.
Were we disposed to reconstruct history, as many
writers seem inclined, from a literal acceptance of the
protests which the church has from time to time made
against these forms of sin, it would be easy to set forth a
very gloomy view of the social and moral condition of the
Southern Presbyterians during the decade 1860-70. But
the principle which forbids our seeing, through the pro-
tests against concubinage on the part of the priesthood of
the church from 400 to 1200, anything but universal un-
cleanness, permits us to see much of the highest Chris-
tian virtue in the life of the Southern Church during the
decade named.
The Assembly of 1865 felt called upon to speak con-
cerning the prevalence of fashionable amusements and
social recreations in the following strain :
The Assembly expresses itself with more earnestness on this whole sub-
ject because of the disposition which is observed in all parts of our borders
to run into the inordinate indulgence of worldliness, at this time, in forget-
fulness of the mighty chastenings of God which are even yet upon us, and
because we see members of our churches and our beloved baptized youth, in
forgetfulness of the covenant of God which is upon them, carried away with
the world's delusions, to the subversion of the divine influence of the sanct-
uary, and to the neglect of the interests of their souls, l
Again, in 1869, in response to an overture from the
Rev. Dr. R. L. Dabney, the Assembly '' earnestly and
solemnly enjoined" upon all the sessions and Presbyteries
under its care the absolute necessity of enforcing the
discipline provided in our constitution against offenses —
under the word offenses including the attendance by our
members upon theatrical exhibitions and performances,
and promiscuous dancings, against intemperance, and
availing themselves of the expedients for evading pecu-
1 "Minutes of 1865," p. 362.
THE SOCIAL AND MORAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH. 419
niary obligations now permitted by the legislation of the
country in such a manner as cannot be justified by a con-
science enlightened by the Spirit and the Word of God,
and must dishonor the cause of Jesus Christ.^
These vigorous representations and protests against the
evils specified are proofs indeed of their mournful preva-
lence, but are proofs as well of the fact that there was a
large and influential element In the church most watch-
ful against them. It Is a marvel that the people of the
church kept from frivolity and corruptness as they did.
Few conquered people have experienced such a complete
overturning of social conditions. A people of as great
comfort and frugal plenty as any people on the globe en-
joyed, perhaps, were thrown into the hardest conditions,
and had a long, difficult struggle for existence. That they
did not grow reckless and fall into bestial misanthropy and
misotheism is the highest proof at once of their own virtue
and God's goodness to them. Southern Presbyterians of
to-day and the future may take a just delight in the hero-
ically Christian character of the living In those early years
of the church.
But not even with changed conditions and a country
again prosperous has the church been free from a struggle
on these subjects of dancing, card-playing, and dancing-
schools. The church in Atlanta, Ga., was greatly racked
in the effort to discipline such offenses in 1877-80. And
throughout the church till to-day sessions and pastors
have had to fight. Money-grabbing, gambling In stocks,
futures, etc., have come to be fearful and prevalent evils
among worldlings, and even among professing Christians
throughout the nation. The territory of the Southern
Presbyterian Church is not exempt. The church even has
a share of those who worship mammon. And, further-
1 " Minutes of 1869," p. 390.
420 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. iv.
more, these evils have brought other evils in their train —
restlessness, thirst for exciting amusements, morally un-
healthy living. These evils are naturally more widespread
than the first class. Especially is this true in the larger
cities. Nor have the church rulers in all cases fought well.
Discipline is hard to administer — as hard to give as to re-
ceive. The church authorities have in many cases shirked.
Other social and moral evils which the church has had
to battle with — to a limited extent among her communi-
cants, to a greater extent among her baptized non-com-
municants, and especially among the worldlings about her
— are intemperance and liquor-selling, ordinary gambling,
and profanity. The church has bewailed and protested
against profanity as a national sin of huge dimensions, has
fought it in the pulpit, and has to a considerable degree
lived out her horror of this sin.^ She has fought gambling
manfully, rating it as essentially robbery and leading gen-
erally to temporal ruin.^ As an instance of the stand
made by the church, reference may be made to the heroic,
drastic, and effective measures against the New Orleans
lottery by Dr. B. M. Palmer, culminating with the retire-
ment of the company with the end of the year 1893 from
the United States.
The church has been strong in its support of temper-
ance, though consistently with its Standards it has refused
to espouse a political party as an advance movement in its
onslaught on intemperance. Its genuine attitude toward
the question is brought out in a paper adopted by the
Assembly of 1892, which is as follows:
Whereas, we recognize the liquor traffic as an aggressive enemy to the
home, the church, and the state, an alarming menace to the Christian Sab-
bath, and a powerful obstacle to the work of establishing Christ's kingdom
in foreign lands ; and
Whereas, " Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the
1 " Minutes of 1862," p. 36. 2 uid., p. 38.
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARD LYNCH LAW. 42 I
law of God," and a failure to manifest disapproval of, or opposition to, a
prevailing evil is a sin of omission ; therefore.
Resolved, That we reaffirm the deliverances and testimony of our church,
made in 1891, on the subject of temperance, the liquor traffic, and abstinence
from intoxicants as a beverage, and we bear our testimony against the estab-
lishing and promoting the traffic in intoxicant liquors as the fruitful source
of sin, crime, and misery.!
This stand was taken against " the liquor traffic " as it
IS, of course, and is approvable.
The attitude of the church toward lynching and other
forms of mob law is one of steady opposition. Her people
recognize the extreme provocation which has occasioned
so much mob violence in the Southern States — the insuf-
ficient penalties affixed by our statutes to such crimes as
rape and arson, and the tardy execution of such law as we
have, or their damnable evasions. Southern Presbyterians
recognize the great provocations ; nevertheless, they theo-
retically and in general practice deprecate at once the
provocatives and the outbursts of mob violence. They
preach and live commonly against it.
Brighter illustrations of Christian living than are found
in Southern Presbyterian homes exist nowhere.
1 ** Minutes of 1892," p. 462.
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO OTHER BODIES.
" If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother,
he is a Har : for he that loveth not his brother whom he
hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"^
The Presbyterian family of churches has been wont to
recognize brethren in the numerous evangelical churches
throughout the world. These churches have been dis-
tinguished for a liberality of posture toward the other
branches of the Church of God in pleasing contrast to the
exclusive claims of the majorities in the Episcopal and
Baptist communions. And this posture toward the rest
of the Christian world is of such importance as affecting
the true unity of the Church of God in its opposition to
the world that it deserves particular and careful treatment
in the history of any church.
Having set forth, therefore, the origin and the historic
development of the Southern Church, external and in-
ternal— its growth in numbers and external means and
muniments, and its growth in doctrine, polity, and life —
it becomes our duty to show how the church has lived
with her neighbor churches.
But before doing this we propose to set forth the re-
lations which this church has maintained with the state.
These relations are not less important than the foregoing.
If a church be united with a civil government, one of two
things, as history establishes, invariably follows : the church
becomes supreme and uses the state as its servant, thus
1 I John iv. 20.
421
NON-SECULAR CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH. 423
employing means and methods which God's Word forbids ;
or the state becomes supreme and prostitutes the Church
of God to its own service.
Some dreamers to-day talk about christianizing the
state. This can hardly be done before the millennium.
Atheists, infidels, Jews, and hosts of other Antichrist men,
are too frequent in this country to have a state essentially
Christian in its form of constitution and laws. The con-
stitution of our state may and should be theistic, but not
Christian. Hence, the true relation between the church
and the state should be that of respectful and friendly
independence.
I. The N071- Secular Character of the Church: Its Re-
lations with the State. — The reader will remember that in
the ''Address to all the Churches of Jesus Christ through-
out the Earth," issued by the Constituting Assembly of
1 86 1, it was distinctly affirmed that the church and state
occupied provinces entirely distinct, and should in no wise
intermeddle one with the other. And the theory that
these two ordinances of God should remain in friendly
and respectful and mutually helpful but entire independ-
ence, has remained the theory of the Southern Presbyterian
Church — a theory which on the whole it has maintained
well in practice. In a pastoral letter issued by the Assem-
bly of 1865, and setting forth the relation of the church to
the govermneiit of the country, these words occur :
During the prevalence of this war, " the higher powers " actually bearing
rule over most of our bounds, and to which, under the Word of God, we
were required to be "subject," were the government of the Confederate
States and those of the several States constituting it. By the event of the
war the first has been overthrown ; and the second, as constituents thereof,
are changed. The "higher powers" now bearing rule over us are con-
fessedly the government of the United States and those existing in the States
wherein we reside. The rightfulness of these several authorities, and to
which of them the allegiance of our people as citizens was or is primarily
due, are matters upon which a judicatory of the church has no right to pro-
424 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
nounce judgment. The relations of the Church of Christ to civil govern-
ments is not one de jure, but de facto. As right and good, or wrong and
wicked, they rise and fall by the agency and permission of God's providence.
In either case the attitude of the church toward them is essentially the same.
As long as they stand and are acknowledged, obedience is to be enjoined as
a duty, factious resistance condemned as a sin ; but in regard to conflicts
between existing governments, or as to movements in society, peaceful or
otherwise, to effect political changes, the church as such has no more con-
trol over them than it has over the polls of the country. If it has authority
to uphold on the one side, it has equal authority to condemn on the other ;
if to suppress a political movement, then also to instigate it. In truth it has
neither ; and to assert the contrary is to corrupt the church in its principles,
forever embroil it with the strifes of the world, and plunge it headlong into
ruin.
Under these views, and considering the extraordinary conflict through
which the country has passed, as well as the extraordinary circumstances in
which it is now placed, it is incumbent upon us to exhort you, brethren, to
obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves ; fulfill with
scrupulous fidelity all your obligations to the government of the land, remem-
bering the duty of this compliance, "not only for wrath, but for conscience'
sake." For so is the will of God, that with well-doing you may put to
silence the ignorance of foolish men.^
In the report of the Committee on Foreign Correspond-
ence, adopted by the Assembly of 1866, are found the
following words :
The old conflict for the spirituality and independence of the church is, to
the amazement of many, renewed in our day and upon our own continent.
The battle fought generations ago by the Melvilles, Gillespies, and Hender-
sons of Scotland is reopened with singular violence, and the old banner is
again floating over us with the historic inscription, " For Christ's Covenant
and Crown." Upon no one subject is the mind of this Assembly more
clearly ascertained, upon no one doctrine is there a more solid and perfect
agreement among those whom this Assembly represents, than the non-sec-
ular and non-political character of the Church of Jesus Christ. Whatever
ambiguous or indiscreet expressions may have been extorted under pressure
of extraordinary excitement from individuals among us, the Assembly of this
church deliberately reaffirms the testimony given in the solemn "Address to
the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth," issued in 1861, during
its session in the city of Augusta.2
1 " Minutes of 1865," pp. 382 flf.
2 The very words of the letter, beginning with " The provinces of the
church and state are perfectly distinct,''^ and ending with the words "/« the
world of matter^'''' are quoted. See chapter ii., this sketch, p. 349.
NON-SECULAR CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH, 425
[This address] commits us to the maintenance and defense of the crown
rights of the Redeemer, whether, on the one hand, they be usurped by the
state, or whether, on the other, they be renounced by any portion of God's
professing people. Summoned thus in the providence of God to contend for
the same principles for which our martyr fathers of the Scottish Reformation
testified even to the death, and which the fathers of the Southern Presbyte-
rian Church labored so earnestly to secure, and rejoiced in having obtained
their full recognition by the civil government in America, it would be most
happy if all those in the different branches of the Presbyterian family who
are called to renew the protest could be united in one homogeneous body
for the reassertion of Christ's regal supremacy in and over his spiritual
kingdom, the church. The scattered testimony of individual witnesses would
deepen in intensity if gathered into one volume and rolled against those who
would place the crown of Jesus upon the head of Caesar. In view of all
which, this Assembly would tender the hand to all who are of like mind with
us as to the doctrines of grace and as to the order and discipline of God's
house, that as one compacted church we may oppose a break-water against
the current that is sweeping from its moorings our common Protestantism,
until the doctrine of the church as a free and spiritual commonwealth shall
regain its ascendency, not only over the Presbyterian but over the whole
American Protestant mind.l
1 " Minutes of 1866," pp. 30 ff. Compare the letter of the Synod of
Kentucky. This letter to the General Assembly contemplating union was
written in 1867. It set forth the principles of the Synod. The General
Assembly, in giving it a place upon its records, assured the Synod of its
" substantial agreement " therewith. It contained the following words :
"It is therefore not only incompetent to the church courts, but positively
a perversion of the truth, that they shall assume to consider any questions
than those which relate to the government, order, and discipline of Christ's
visible kingdom, or to determine these on grounds aside from the Word of
God, or to speak in Christ's name and by his authority, otherwise than to
the faith and conscience of his people, concerning things to be obeyed as en-
joined by the law of Christ. . . . The church has manifestly no commission
either to discharge any functions of the state, or to direct, advise, or assist
the state. . . . Therefore the attempt on the part of the tribunals of the
church to exercise the authority thus delegated to them by Christ in deter-
mining questions merely secular, concerning which his Word makes no such
determination, is to usurp the prerogative of the church's divine Master ; and
practically to obscure to the faith of his people the doctrine of his kingly
office. . . . Hence this Synod and its Presbyteries have steadfastly protested
against and resisted the assumption of authority by the church courts to
advise, direct, and assist the civil government in its policy by the exercise of
their spiritual authority, or to interpose the power of the spiritual sword for
enforcing any theories of social organization, or theories of labor, or political
theories, or to direct men as citizens in the choice of their civil polity. . . .
"As to the functions and sphere of the General Assembly and other courts,
ihey have maintained, and desired to have it recognized as the accepted
426 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
Concerning the relation of the church to the institution
of slavery, the ''Address to the Churches of Jesus Christ
throughout the Earth" had set forth as the church's
position that the policy of slavery's existence or non-ex-
istence was a question which exclusively belonged to the
state ; that the church had no right to enjoin it as a duty,
or to condemn it as a sin.^ In the pastoral of 1865 the
church affirmed that the address referred to "contains the
only full and unambiguous and deliberate and authorita-
tive exposition of our views in regard to this matter"; it
reaffirmed '* its whole doctrine to be that of Scripture and
reason." After quoting at length from the Address, the
pastoral letter of 1 865 goes on to say :
This relation is now overthrowni, suddenly and violently : whether justly
or not justly, in wrath or in mercy, for weal or for woe, let history and the
Judge of all the earth decide. But there are two considerations of vital in-
terest which still remain. One is that while the existence of slavery may, in
its civil aspect, be regarded as a settled question, an issue now gone, yet the
lawfulness of the relation as a question of social morality and Scriptural
truth has lost nothing of its importance. When we solemnly declare to you,
brethren, that the dogma which asserts the inherent sinfulness of this rela-
tion is unscriptural and fanatical, that it is condemned not only by the Word
of God but by the voice of the church in all ages, that it is one of the most
pernicious heresies of modern times, that its countenance by the church is a
just cause of separation from it (i Tim. vi. 1-5), we have surely said enough
to warn you from this insidious error as from a fatal shore. 2
Such were the " well-considered and formal views of
the church " up to 1870. The church has, however, once
or twice — and according to the judgment of her critics,
interpretation, that the constitution of the church assigns to the General
Assembly no function to the end that it may counsel, direct, or assist the
civil government. . . . That neither does the constitution assign to the
Assembly any authority to consider and determine either questions of the
policy of the state touching its citizens, or the duties of the citizens as such,
in respect of the policy of the state ; or questions between different interpre-
tations of the Federal constitution." — "Minutes of 1867," pp. 183 ff.
1 "Minutes of i860," pp. 55 ff. See pp. 344 ff. of chapter ii. for a full
statement of the church's position in 1861, in its own terms.
2 "Minutes of 1865," p. 385.
TRANSIENT INCONSISTENCIES. 427
several times — been inconsistent in practice with her
formal views. The following instances of real or appar-
ent transgression may be found from her records.
In the Narrative of the state of religion in 1862 it is
said:
All the Presbyteries which have reported dwell upon the absorbing topic
of the war in which we are now engaged. . . . [Again] All the presbyterial
Narratives, without exception, mention the fact that their congregations have
evinced the most cordial sympathy with the people of the Confederate States
in their efforts to maintain their cherished rights and institutions against the
despotic power which is attempting to crush them. Deeply convinced that
this struggle is not alone for civil rights and property and home, but also
for religion, for the church, for the gospel, for existence itself, the churches
in our connection have freely contributed to its prosecution of their substance,
their prayers, and above all of their members, and the beloved youths of
their congregations. They have parted without a murmur with those who
constitute the hope of the church, and have bidden them go forth to the
support of this great and sacred cause, with their benedictions and with their
supplications for their protection and success. The Assembly desires to
record, with its solemn approval, this fact of the unanimity of our people in
supporting a contest to which religion as well as patriotism now summons
the citizens of this country, and to implore for them the blessing of God in
the course they are now pursuing. [Again] We are constrained, however,
to call the attention of the churches to the fact mentioned by some of the
Presbyteries, that the absorbing interest of the struggle, in which we are
contending for everything dear to man, is having some influence in lessening
in the minds of God's people a sense of their spiritual obligations.!
The report on theological seminaries of the same year
says:
We distinctly recognize the right of the state to claim the services of any
or all of her citizens in this time of need. We also acknowledge it a privi-
lege as well as a plain duty for our people to pledge each other, and the gov-
ernment of their choice, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,
in united effort to drive back the invaders of our soil and the enemies of our
institutions. Yet when and where this necessity does not exist we think
that our candidates can better serve their generation, and do more for their
country, by diligently preparing to preach the gospel. 2
1 "Minutes of 1862," pp. 21 flf.
2 Ibid., p. 9.
428 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
Somewhat similar faults were made in the pastoral let-
ter of 1862, and in the Narrative of 1863.1
The Narrative of 1864 contains these words:
One and another message has come to us from the field of deadly strife,
filling our minds with the deepest solicitude, urging us to more united prayer,
and inspiring us with profound gratitude to God for the repeated repulses of
our insolent and cruel foe. . . .
Our enemies have evinced a settled determination to prosecute their enter-
prises of guilt and horror in the face of all the disastrous consequences which
must ensue from this insane attempt to subjugate and destroy us. . . .
The wonderful work of grace in our armies presents the strongest encour-
1 In the pastoral letter of 1862 it is said: "We have been called on to
witness the desolations of the land, and to mourn over the waste places of
Zion, created by the havoc of war ; and from all our churches we hear the
report that the ranks of the armies of our national independence are crowded
with the noblest of our brethren and with the choicest of our youth, who have
rushed to the rescue of the republic, driven by the impulses of patriotism,
and in obedience to the call of God and of our country. But our hearts turn
with special solicitude toward the noble youth of our congregations who have
gone from our midst to this bloody contest for national life and independ-
ence. . . .
" We honor you for your self-denial and patriotic zeal ; we would love to
see you become the honored instruments in God's hands in leading sinners
to the Saviour. ... In you are wrapped all the hopes of our church and
country. With the solution of the question, What are you to become? will
be determined the problem of our national glory or shame, and that of the
success and usefulness of the church in our beloved land. We tremble for
you as we see you drawn away by the duties of patriotism from the constant
use of the means of grace and divine influence of the sanctuary. We sympa-
thize with you as you endure fatigue and sickness in camp, as you engage in
the life-struggle on the sanguinary field, and as you consecrate everything
dear on earth on the altar of patriotic duty." — "Minutes of 1862," pp. 35 ff.
The Narrative of 1863 says : "During the period which has elapsed since
the last annual session of this body, our unhappy country has been the thea-
ter of a war unexampled, perhaps, in the scope of its operations, of the vast
numbers engaged, and of the pitiless barbarity with which it has been con-
ducted on the part of our invaders. The blood of our brethren, our fathers,
and our children, unjustly and untimely slain, cries to Heaven. A consider-
able portion of our territory is in possession of the enemy, and all communi-
cation with the churches embraced in those districts must for the time be
suspended. We look forward with a cheerful confidence to a renewal of our
relations to those churches, when, by the favor of God, the enemy shall have
been expelled. We commend these afflicted brethren to your sympathies
and your prayers. It is to us matter of devout gratitude to Almighty God
that he has so often and so signally baffled the efforts of our enemies to effect
our subjugation, and that he has vouchsafed to our arms victories so repeated
and so wonderful." — "Minutes of 1863," p. 155.
THE CHURCH RENEWING ITS TESTIMONY. 429
agement to the praying people at home, and has placed the seal of the divine
approbation upon our righteous cause. . . .
The reports of all our Presbyteries indicate an increasing interest in the
spiritual welfare of our colored population. The long-continued agitations
of our adversaries have wrought within us a deeper conviction of the divine
appointment of domestic servitude, and have led to clearer comprehensions
of the duties we owe to the African race. We hesitate not to affirm that it
is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institution of
slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave. We could not,
if we would, yield up these four millions of immortal beings to the dictates
of fanaticism and the menace of military power. We distinctly recognize the
inscrutable Power which brought this benighted people into our midst, and
we shall feel that we have not discharged our solemn trust until we have used
every effort to bring them under the saving influence of the gospel of Christ. 1
During the period between the close of the war and
1870 there was a great controversy in the country, upon
the spirituality and independence of the church as the
visible kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth.
And in order that the mass of her membership might know
clearly the past witness of the church as to her inde-
pendence, and the proper testimony for the future, the
Assembly of 1870 instructed the Committee of Publication
to issue in tract form the public official utterances of the
Assemblies in relation thereto.^
This publication, together with the repeated charge
that the church had not maintained an attitude of inde-
pendence toward the Confederacy, was the occasion of
the Assembly's reviewing in 1875-76 its witness as to the
non-political character of the church, and formally setting
forth its testimony once again. The Assembly of 1876
recited the church's testimony concerning its own non-
secular and non-political character, delivered from 1861
to 1867 inclusive. It extracted from the minutes practi-
cally the entire body of expressions alleged to be incon-
1 " Minutes of 1864," p. 293.
2 Compare " Minutes of 1870," p. 542.
430 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. v.
sistent with the afore-mentioned declarations.^ By way
of comment on these two classes of extracts, it affirmed :
It will be seen that the doctrine announced and maintained by the Assem-
bly, on the relations of the church to the state, is not, as has often been
charged, the unscriptural and impracticable idea that the church and Chris-
tian people, as such, have no duties to perform toward the state. True, the
Assembly denies the right of the church courts to interfere with the domain
of Caesar by legislating on purely political questions ; but at the same time it
has the right to enjoin those duties which the citizen confessedly owes to the
commonwealth. ... As long as states stand and are acknowledged, obe-
dience— that is, submission and obedience in all things not sinful — is to be
enjoined as a duty ; factious resistance to be condemned as a sin. . . .
In 1 86 1, at the time of its organization, the Assembly found its members
placed under the civil authority of the Confederate Government and that of
the respective States which constituted it. The governments. State and Con-
federate, were established and generally acknowledged within our respective
bounds. The United States Government was known to us only as one with
which the Confederate Government was at war, and by which it was menaced
by land and by sea. Under these circumstances, and in accordance with the
above principles, our Assembly recognized " the powers that be," and which
are " ordained of God over us," to be those of the government of the Con-
federate States and of the respective States confederated in it. Hence it was
simply carrying out its own principles and the doctrines of the Word of God
when it taught the citizens and the soldiers to discharge toward these high
civil authorities the duties which the Scriptures enjoin toward " the powers
that be," and when it made " intercession for all that are in authority." . . .
So far as any action of that kind goes, and to that extent, there is nothing
that offends against the principles set forth in our formal declarations.
In the Narrative of 1862 there is a single clause v/hich demands a criticism.
The situation of the Southern country was known to be one of extreme peril.
The war, if successful on the part of the United States, involved not only the
destruction of the Confederate Government, but the forfeiture of the political
rights of its citizens, the overthrow of the existing domestic institutions, the
loss of property, and other evils universally dreaded. Under these circum-
stances it was right and proper for our Assembly to utter a strong declaration
of sympathy for our people, and to give a decided expression of commenda-
tion to those who were performing these acts of what they esteemed a patriotic
duty. It was substantially saying to them: "As this is to you not only a
government de facto, but also one of your own choice, we commend you for
acting faithfully and fully according to these convictions, and follow you with
our prayers." But when our Assembly intimates or implies an opinion as
1 The extracts are just those given in the immediately preceding pages of
this chapter.
THE CHURCH RENEWING ITS TESTIMONY. 43 I
to whether the war referred to was justly or unjustly waged, or a decision as
to which was, in its origin and principle, the government to which the citi-
zens owed obedience, it transcends the limits of its authority. It no longer
bases its commendation upon what is de facto as to the government, or upon
the inherent right which the citizen had in defending the government of his
choice, but it assumes to decide upon the righteousness of the war. A court
of the Lord Jesus Christ has no commission to do this. It is in principle
the error we have condemned in the Northern Assembly of 1861, and those
of other years. 1
Another alleged error is to be remarked in several forms of expression
found in the extracts which have been recited; such as : " the war in which
we are now engaged " ; " the absorbing interest of the struggle in which we
are now contending for everything dear to man " ; " the armies of (7z/rnationaI
indef)endence " ; " the pitiless barbarity with which it [the war] has been con-
ducted on the part of our invaders " ; " it is to us matter of devout gratitude
to Almighty God that he has so often and so signally baffled the efforts of our
enemies to effect our subjugation, and that he has vouchsafed to our arms
victories so repeated and wonderful"; "profound gratitude to God for the
repeated repulses of our insolent and cruel foe"; "this insane attempt to
subjugate and destroy zts."
If these expressions are to be taken in their literal sense, it should be can-
didly admitted that they are entirely out of place in a court of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and are therefore to be regretted and disapproved. They seem to
arise from a confusion of thought or a temporary forgetfulness ; at any rate,
there is a failure to discriminate between what may be properly uttered in the
character of a citizen and what may be uttered by an ecclesiastical body.
At the same time, with this admission, it may be rightly insisted that the
objection rests to a large extent upon a hypercriticism ; for it is evident that
the word "our" is here used inadvertently, and in a very general sense,
similar to the phrase " our army," or " our country," so often heard in all
ecclesiastical assemblies.
Concerning Slavery.
In the Narrative of the state of religion for 1864 two expressions concern-
ing slavery are found which may have given rise to much criticism. It is
1 "There is, however, this wide difference between the action of the two
Assemblies. The Northern not only decided a purely political question for
its own members residing within these States and Territories, confessedly
subject to the jurisdiction of the government of the United States, but it also
undertook to decide the great question for the members of our churches
residing under the de facto government of the Confederate States, and one
organized under forms of much regularity and with much unanimity ; and
undertook also to make compliance a condition of church-membership, and
to visit with discipline those who disobeyed this act of usurpation. The
Southern Assembly was never guilty of this transgression, though it may
have erred in the particular mentioned." — " Minutes of 1876," p. 294.
432 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
proper to state, as a preliminary remark, that these Narratives in general are
not closely scrutinized when presented to the General Assembly, inasmuch
as they are not expected to introduce difficult or debatable points. And in
regard to the Narrative for that year, it is a well-known fact that it was read
on the very eve of the final adjournment of the body, at a time when the
most exciting reports of battles occurring or impending had just reached the
place [Charlotte, N. C], and when many members, apprehensive of being
cut off by military operations from a return home, were impatiently hurrying
away. If, therefore, some things may be found in this paper less carefully
expressed than could be desired, the statement just presented may account
for the fact that attention was not drawn to them. But taking them as they
are, there are a few remarks to be offered which are due to a fair understand-
ing. We notice :
1. The expression that "domestic servitude is of divine appointment."
The essential principle of slavery is submission, or subjection to control by
the will of another. This is an essential element in every form of civil
government also, and in the family relation itself. The application of this
principle in the form of " domestic servitude" is right or wrong according
to circumstances. It is not an institution essential to the social state, and
therefore is not of universal obligation. But in certain conditions of society
it has been expressly recognized by God, permitted and appointed. See
Exodus XX. lO, 17; Exodus xxi. 7; Leviticus xxv. 44-46; Matthew v. 17;
I Timothy vi. 1-4. If it is a relation justifiable and lawful in the sight of
God, it must be in a certain sense of divine appointment, since whatever is
thus lawful implies the sanction of the law-giver. And the existence of
wrong laws and usages connected with it no more disproves the lawfulness of
the relation itself than such things disprove the lawfulness of marriage or of
civil government.
Therefore, by declaring the institution of slavery to be " of divine appoint-
ment," our Assembly must not be understood as expressing the opinion that
it was ordained of God as a positively divine and obligatory institute of soci-
ety for all communities ; but simply that as it was recognized and enforced by
the law of the Confederate States, and of the particular States embraced in
that confederation, and was a relation existing and prevailing throughout its
boundaries, it was, in the sense of all established civil relations, a matter of
divine appointment for the time being, in the midst of the people of those
States.
2. It is affirmed that it was the peculiar mission of the " Southern Church
to conserve the institution of slavery."
Concerning this we remark that the same form of expression is to be found
in the " Minutes of the General Assembly (New School) of 1865." In a
carefully considered paper on "The State of the Country," that Assembly
says: " God has taught us in this war that the church must conserve the
state by instructing the people in the great principles of justice, and inspiring
them to practice the same." If any one will define the sense in which it is
THE CHURCH RENEWING ITS TESTIMONY. 433
proper for the church " to conserve the state," in the same sense it would be
also proper for it "to conserve the institution of slavery." It certainly is
not the duty of the church to conserve the state in the sense of dictating
what form of civil government it shall establish, how long it shall continue,
or for what causes it should be changed. Its duty is limited to condemning
at all times factious resistance to established civil authority, to inculcating
obedience while it remains, and those virtues by which it may be made, as
far as possible, a blessing to society. The very same applies to slavery; and
whoever will read in its connection the expression used by our Assembly,
must see that such is the sense there intended by that word, namely, to secure
from this relation and arrangement, as it existed, the greatest practicable
amount of good for all classes of society, and thus ''make it a blessing both
to master and slaved This we know was the sense intended by the writer
of the Narrative, now settled as an acceptable minister in connection with the
Northern Assembly, and we have no doubt it was the sense in which the
Assembly adopted it.
It has been widely proclaimed that our Assembly meant by the word
*' conserve " to assert that it was the duty of the church to perpetuate the
institution of slavery. On this point it may be remarked : {a) that no such
intended meaning is to be gathered from the context ; (3) that such an inter-
pretation is negatived by the explicit and carefully considered statement of
our church on this point, at its first organization in 1861. (r) Even those
who have raised a clamor against us do not themselves seem to be satisfied
that the word "conserve " necessarily means to perpetuate. This is evident
from the fact that in the minutes of their General Assembly charging us with
"grievous heresy" and with "blasphemy" they repeatedly misquote, and
therefore misrepresent us. The word perpetuate is never used by our As-
sembly, but is to be found in the interpolation of its accusers. (" Minutes
of the General Assembly, North, for 1865," pp. 560 ff.) {d) Finally con-
ceding, as we do, that the word "conserve " in this connection is ambiguous,
our Assembly in 1865 did all that it could be reasonably expected in the
premises to disengage itself from an ambiguous or inappropriate expression.
All that was necessary or proper was to declare that the Address of 1861
"contains the full, unambiguous, and authoritative exposition of our views
in regard to this matter." And this was done for the special purpose of
disavowing an interpretation which was inconsistent with the deliberately
expressed views of our church.^
Finally, the Assembly of 1876, in view of all the circum-
stances and interests involved, solemnly, in certain specific
resolutions, reaffirmed the explicit statements concerning
the non-secular character of the church, set forth in the
1 " Minutes of 1876," pp. 291-297.
434 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. V.
"Address to all the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout
the Earth" of 1861 ; disavowed all ambiguous and incon-
sistent expressions found upon the records as forming any
part of the well-considered, authoritative teaching of the
church; declared the meaning of the Assembly of 1864,
in speaking of conserving slavery " as of divine appoint-
ment," to have been, so far as ascertainable, ** that as it
was recognized and enforced by the Confederate States,
and was an existing relation prevailing throughout its
boundaries, it was, in the sense of all established civil re-
lations, a matter of divine appointment for the time being
in the midst of the people of those States " ; and that it
was the church's duty " to secure from this relation and
arrangement, as it existed, the greatest practical amount
of good for all classes of society, and thus make it a bless-
ing both to master and slave." ^
It thus appears that if the Southern Presbyterian Church
has faltered in her testimony for the non-secular charac-
ter of the church, her falterings have been transient incon-
sistencies. Her witness for this truth has been one of her
peculiar glories. The Assembly has humbly explained and
acknowledged such mistakes as she has made. " That it
faltered at all amidst the pressure and confusion of the
times is not the surprise, but rather that it did not fall
away from the truth like others. . . . The surprise is that
it has had the grace to acknowledge before the world its
inconsistency in any transient departure. Awakening from
a terrible dehrium, and finding that a false and treacher-
ous principle had, in an interval of paroxysm, stealthily
insinuated itself, it hurled it with indignation from its em-
brace, and placed its heel upon it as a deadly viper." 2
It is believed that the church has continued to hold until
1 " Minutes of 1876," pp. 233, 234.
2 Dr. S. S. Laws' " Letter to the Synod of Missouri (O. S.), 1872," p. 0;.
i
UNION WITH THE INDEPENDENT PRESBYTERIANS, 435
the present the same theoretical view. In 1883, in reply-
to an overture from Abingdon Presbytery, the Assembly
declared *' that it is not competent for the church, in its
organic capacity, to seek the intervention of the civil pow-
ers for the accomplishment of any of the ends before it,
as a witness for the truth of God. The Assembly would
furthermore deprecate all action which might be construed
as committing the church to any alliance with associations
or societies outside of its pale for the accomplishment of
this or any other object, however worthy in itself." ^ Any-
apparent deviation from this position since 1883 will appear
on investigation to be merely apparent or unintentional.
2. Cases of Organic Union with other Ecclesiastical
Bodies.
Union with the Independent Presbyterian CJinrch took
place in 1863. The founder of this church was the Rev.
W. C. Davis, who withdrew from the Presbyterian Church
about 1 8 1 o — a '* man of a vigorous intellect, of considerable
injduence among the people, and an interesting preacher,
given more to metaphysical speculation than most men," ^
extremely tenacious of what he regarded as new discoveries,
and so unacquainted with church history as to be ignorant
that most of the beloved offspring of his mind had been
broached, advocated, exploded, and forgotten long before.^
1 " Minutes of 1883," p. 24.
2 Howe's " History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carohna," vol. ii.,
p. 97.
3 Compare Howe's " History of the Presbyterian Church in South Caro-
lina," vol. ii., p. 158. His views were propagated orally and through his
book, " The Gospel Plan," in which the courts of the church found the follow-
ing objectionable doctrines : i. " That the active obedience of Christ consti-
tutes no part of that righteousness by which a sinner is justified ; " 2. " That
obedience to the moral law was not required as the condition of the covenant
of works;" 3. "That God could not make Adam, or any other creature,
either holy or unholy ; . . . regeneration must be a consequence of faith ;
faith precedes regeneration ; faith in the first act of it is not a holy act ; "
4. " Christians may sin willfully and habitually;" 5. " If God has to plant all
the principal parts of salvation in a sinner's heart to enable him to believe,
436 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
He had a small following, not so much of adherents to his
peculiar views as of personal friends. They perpetuated
their separate life until 1863. In that year, " upon the
cordial and hearty adoption of our confession, . . . the
only true ground on which we can receive any ecclesias-
tical body,"^ they were received into the Southern Pres-
byterian Church.^
Union with the United Synod of the South was the next
to be consummated. This occurred in 1864. In 1838 a
split between the Old and New School wings of the Pres-
byterian Church in the United States of America took
place. In 1857-58 the Southern contingent of the New
School body withdrew from its Assembly in the North
because the Cleveland Assembly of that body (1857) had
** adopted a paper touching the subject of slavery, that
was regarded by some of the members of the Assembly
as contrary to Scripture and violative of the constitution of
the church, in that it virtually made slaveholding a cause
for discipline by the church courts."^ The aggrieved
members secured a convention in Richmond, Va., during
the following August, to consider the situation. This con-
vention despaired of the cessation of the slavery agitation
in the New School Assembly ; abhorred being disciplined
for something made an offense neither by the Standards
nor the Bible, as well as the Assembly's high-handed and
unconstitutional measures in condemning a lower judica-
tory or individuals for any cause unless they have been
the gospel plan is quite out of his reach, and consequently does not suit his
case ; and it must be impossible for God to condemn a man for unbelief, for
no just law condemns a man for not doing what he cannot do." (" Minutes
of Assembly of 1810," p. 452 f.) Mr. Davis was deposed in 1812.
1 Alexander's " Digest," pp. 411, 412.
2 The membership was confined to the upper parts of South Carolina and
adjacent parts of North Carolina, with York County as a center. This union
brought in four ministers, one licentiate, and about eleven country and village
churches.
3 Alexander's " Digest," p. 404.
UNION WITH UNITED SYNOD OF THE SOUTH. 437
brought before the Assembly in the way prescribed by
the constitution ; ** and resolved to recommend the Pres-
byteries which were opposed to the slavery agitation in the
highest judicatories of the church to appoint delegates,"
to meet at Knoxville, Tenn., on the third Thursday in
May, 1858, to organize a General Synod, under the name
of " The United Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America." Accordingly, at the time
appointed twenty- one commissioners from twelve Presby-
teries, located in four different States, met and constituted
the " United Synod." A declaration of principles which
was adopted contained among its articles one affirming
" their agreement in, and approbation of, the Standards of
the church," taken in the sense of the Adopting Act of
1729. The Synod made an overture to the Old School
Assembly for reception into its fold ; but that body was
not disposed to receive the overture favorably. By 1863
the Old School Church of the South, however, was inclined
to the union. It was no longer suspicious of doctrinal un-
soundness in the New School, South. Indeed, it had long
been known that the New School men of the South were
never advocates of the distinctive New School doctrines,
so much as admirers of New School leaders in the North,
and protestants against the peculiar ecclesiastical moves
of the Old School men of 1837-38.
Accordingly, in 1863 committees to jointly confer as to
the basis of union were appointed, met, and with practically
entire unanimity recommended a plan of union. This plan
contained a declaratiori touching certain doctrines which
had formerly been grounds of debate, in order to make
clear the hearty and sincere agreement of the two bodies,
" to restore full confidence between brethren, and to honor
God's saving truth," to wit: first, concerning ih^ fall of
man and original sin including the imputation of the guilt
438 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. v.
of Adam's sin ; second, concerning regeneration; third, con-
cerning the atonement of Jesus Christ ; fourth, concerning the
believer' s justificatio7i; fifth, concerning revivals; sixth, con-
cerning voluntary societies and the functions of the church.
The Assembly of 1864, after a very full consideration,
expressed its belief that the approval of these propositions
by the committees of conference, and extensively on both
sides, " had served a valuable purpose, by presenting sat-
isfactory evidence of such harmony and doctrinal sound-
ness of views as might ground an honorable union" ; but
judged it most ''prudent to unite on the basis of the exist-
ing Standards 07ily, inasmuch as no actual necessity for
other declarations of belief in order to a happy union "
existed. The Assembly modified the plan of union fur-
ther, *' so as in every case to require the reception of the
Presbyteries under the care of the United Synod into the
Synods of this Assembly, so as to preserve the undoubted
succession of the latter." It made a few other relatively
unimportant changes, and then by a very large majority
adopted the plan thus modified. During the August fol-
lowing the United Synod unanimously adopted the plan
of union as amended and adopted by the General Assem-
bly.
This union was honorable to both parties, and has been
a source of great blessing to Southern Presbyterianism.
It was a perfectly safe union for the Old School body.
The other body was sound, and even if it had not been
completely so, the seminaries for the ministry were to be
in the hands of Old School men, for the whole church.^
In 1867 the Presbytery of Patapsco united with the As-
sembly. It lay in the State of Maryland. It was com-
1 The ranks of the church were much strengthened by this union. " In
1861 the United Synod embraced I2i ministers, 199 churches, and had under
its care 4 licentiates, 18 candidates for the ministry, and 11,581 communi-
cants.
PATAPSCO AND ALABAMA PRESBYTERIES, 439
posed of ministers and churches which had withdrawn from
connection with the Northern Presbyterian Church (O. S.)
** because of the numerous and persistent violations of the
constitution of the church by the highest courts " thereof.^
TJie Alabama Presbytery of the Associate Reformed
Chicrch was received about the same time, the Assembly
guaranteeing its members the right to use Rouse's version
of the Psalms in worship, according to their preference.
The Synod of Kentucky united with the Presbyterian
Church, South, in 1869. In 1861 the Synod of Kentucky,
belonging to the Old School Assembly, on the occasion
of the withdrawal of the Southern Synods declared that
it " adhered with unbroken purpose to the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America." It enjoined
** upon all its members, and upon all under its control and
care, to avoid all divisive and schismatical courses, to cul-
tivate the peace of the church, and to practice great mutual
forbearance."- It deplored the schism which had taken
place in the Southern States, and condemned it as having
been made on insufficient grounds. At the same time it
expressed its regret *' at that part of the action of the last
Assembly touching the order ^ for a day of general prayer,
1 Appearing before the Assembly of 1867, through their commissioners
they affirmed that they had no good " ground of hope that the church of"
their " former connection " would soon " return to the divine constitutioM of
the church so faithfully set forth in the Standards ; that they held it to be
the imperative obligation of all God's people, according to the will of Christ,
to manifest the invisible unity of their faith in the unity of a visible church,
as far and as fast as it can be done consistently with the purity" of \\\^ first;
that they believed "the Presbyterian Church in the United States" to be
the largest body of Christians in the land whose faith and government were
identical with their own and pure according to the Standards of the church.
The Presbytery was at once received by the Assembly, and attached to the
Synod of Virginia as a component part of it. This Presbytery brought an
accession of 6 ministers, 3 churches, 576 communicants, much wealth and
intelligence. (" Minutes of 1867," pp. 131 ff.)
3 Alexander's " Digest," p. 427.
3 The reader has been made acquainted with this order under the caption
of " The Spring Resolutions."
440 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. V.
which was Hable to be construed, and was construed, into
a requisition on all the members and office-bearers of the
church living in the numerous States which had seceded
from the United States, and were in a state of war with
them, as bound by Christian duty, and by authority of the
church, to disregard the hostile governments which had
been established over them, and, in defiance of the actual
authority of those governments, to pray for their over-
throw." ^ The Assembly in 1862, by way of review, con-
demned the Synod's disapproval of these acts.^
The Assembly of 1862 adopted a paper, too, prepared
by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, in which it declared that pub-
lic order had " been wickedly superseded by rebellion,
anarchy, and violence, in the whole Southern portion of
the Union " ; that all this had ** been brought to pass in a
disloyal and traitorous attempt to overthrow the National
Government by military force, and to divide the nation con-
trary to the wishes of the immense majority of the people
of the nation, and without satisfactory evidence that the
majority of the people in whom the local sovereignty re-
sided, even in the States which revolted, ever authorized
any such proceeding, or ever approved the fraud and
violence by which this horrible treason " had " achieved
whatever success it " had '* had " ; that ** this whole trea-
son, rebellion, anarchy, fraud, and violence " was " utterly
contrary to the dictates of natural religion and morality,
and plainly condemned by the revealed will of God " ; that
it was '' the clear and solemn duty of the National Govern-
ment to preserve, at whatever cost, the national union and
constitution, to crush force by force " ; and that it was
** the bounden duty of the people who" composed ''this
great nation, each one in his several place and degree, to
1 Alexander's " Digest," p. 427.
2 " Minutes of Northern Assembly (O. S.) of 1862," p. 631.
THE SYNOD OF KENTUCKY. 44 1
Uphold the Federal Government, and every State govern-
ment." This paper further denounced, without naming,
certain office-bearers and members of churches in loyal
Synods and Presbyteries as '* faithless to all authority,
human or divine " ; and enjoined obedience to civil gov-
ernment, not only in overt act, but *' in heart, temper, and
motives (as God's law is to be obeyed), and as they shall
answer at the judgment-seat."^ All this was intensely
irritating to a large majority of the Kentucky Synod. ^
Various acts of 1864 were regarded as still more out-
rageous. Among these was the minute known as the
'* Stanley- Matthews Paper," adopting the naturalistic views
of the slavery question, and declaring the political occur-
rences of the time to be providential revelations of the
will of God that every vestige of slavery sJiould be effaced;
that the motive for the longer continuance of slavery had
been taken away by the war of the slaveholding States in
order to found an empire upon the corner-stone of slavery ;
expressing gratitude to God for overruling the wickedness
and calamities of the rebellion to work out the deliverance
of the country from the evil and guilt of slavery ; and the
desire for the extirpation of slavery ; and recommending
all in their communion '' to labor earnestly and unweariedly
for this glorious consummation to which human justice and
Christian love combine to pledge them."^
1 " Minutes of 1862," pp. 624-626. Compare letter of the Synod of Ken-
tucky to the Southern Assembly, " Minutes of Assembly, South, of 1867,"
p. 181.
2 The Assembly of 1863 gave similar offense in its elaborate minute " upon
the subject of raising the United States flag over the church building in
which the body sat ; reaffirming the doctrine of the obligation of the church,
as such, to proclaim her loyalty to the civil government." (Letter of the
Synod of Kentucky to the Southern Assembly of 1867, p. 181 of the " Min-
utes." For the minute, see " Minutes of Northern Assembly (O. S.) of
1863," pp. 57-59-)
3 Letter of Synod to Southern Assembly of 1867, pp. 181, 182 of " Min-
utes." Compare " Minutes of Assembly, North, of 1864," pp. 298, 299.
442 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
" The decisions in the cases of the Rev. Dr. McPheeters
and the Pine Street Church, St. Louis, and of Rev. Mr.
Farris and ruHng elder Watson and the St. Charles Church,
Missouri, . . . giving the full sanction of the Assembly
to the persecution of Christ's ministers who could not in
conscience consent to pervert their office and position to
the support of a political party," ^ was not less objection-
able. The Synod of Kentucky in the following autumn,
in reviewing the minutes of this Assembly, expressed its
disapproval of the Assembly's deliverances on slavery, as
unnecessary, unwise, and untimely. It looked upon said
deliverance as a political, if not partisan, statement — one
that made the Assembly seem to cast its influence with
one or the other of the political parties which divided the
country.^
The Assembly of 1865 gave still further offense in acts
enforcing the principles of the foregoing acts as a part of
the standing law of the church ; thus : '' First, condemn-
ing the Synod of Kentucky for taking exception to the
Assembly's paper on slavery in 1864, and because the
Synod had ' wholly failed to make any deliverance cal-
culated to sustain and encourage our government in its
efforts to suppress a wanton and wicked rebellion.'"^
" Second, the order to the Board of Domestic Missions to
appoint as missionaries * none but those that give satis-
factory evidence of their loyalty to the National Govern-
ment, and that they are in cordial sympathy with the Gen-
eral Assembly in its testimony on doctrine, loyalty, and
freedom.'"* "Third, the order to all the lower church
1 Letter of Synod of Kentucky in " Minutes of Assembly, South, of 1867,"
p. 183. Compare " Minutes of General Assembly, North, of 1864," pp.
311. 312.
2 Alexander's " Digest," p. 427.
3 " Minutes of Northern Assembly of 1865," p. 54. Compare letter of
Synod of Kentucky, ut supra.
4 "Minutes of General Assembly, North, of 1865," pp. 554, 556, 590.
THE '' DECLARATION AND TESTIMONY:' 443
courts requiring the examination of all the ministers and
church-members coming from any of the Southern States,
and making it a condition precedent to admission to the
church courts and churches that they confess as sinful cer-
tain opinions before held touching * States rights,' rebellion,
slavery, not in harmony with previous political utterances
of the Assembly."^ "Fourth, the minutes of the same
Assembly, declaring untruly that the Southern churches
had organized a General Assembly * in order to render
their aid in the attempt to establish, by means of the re-
bellion, a separate national existence, to conserve and per-
petuate the system of slavery — a great crime against the
government and against God ' — and therefore declaring the
Assembly's purpose to ignore the existence of any Presby-
terian church in the Southern States except such churches
and Presbyteries as are loyal to the government of the
United States and to the Northern Presbyterian Church,
and whose views are in harmony with its views on subjects
of domestic slavery." ^
During the summer of 1865 the Louisville Presbytery
adopted its celebrated " Declaration and Testimony against
the Erroneous and Heretical Doctrines and Practices which
have Obtained and been Propagated in the Presbyterian
Church in the United States during the Last Five Years "
— a paper marked by splendid abihty, clear, keen, reveal-
ing, unanswerable.^ The signers testified: against the as-
Compare letter of Synod of Kentucky to General Assembly, South, of 1867,
p. 182.
1 See " Minutes of General Assembly, North, of 1865," p. 566. Compare
letter of Synod of Kentucky to General Assembly, South, of 1867, p. 181 of
" Minutes."
2 " Minutes of General Assembly, North, of 1865," p. 506. Compare
" Minutes of Assembly, South, of 1867," p. 182.
3 The " Declaration and Testimony" was written by Dr. S. R. Wilson,
pastor in Louisville — a man born in the North, and who had lived there
until a few years before. He was never suspected of a leaning toward se-
cession. His writing the paper in question was the result of a conference
444 ^-^-^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
sumption, on the part of the courts of the church, of the
right to decide questions of state policy ; against the doc-
trine that the church, as such, owes allegiance to human
rulers or governments; against the sanction given by the
church to the perversion of the teaching of Christ and
his apostles upon the subject of the duty of Christians as
citizens to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and "to be subject to the higher powers," into authority
for her courts to decide upon political questions ; against
the action of the Assembly of 1864 on the subject of
slavery and emancipation, and against the confirmation of
that act by the Assembly of 1865 ; against the unjust and
scandalous contradictions of their own recorded testimony
and the well-known fact in regard to the labors of the
Presbyterian Church and ministry for the christianizing of
the slaves of the South and the preaching ^ of the gospel
of Christ ; against the doctrine widely taught in the church,
and even countenanced by the Assembly, that the acts
and deliverances of the courts of Christ's commonwealth
may properly be based upon and shaped in accordance
with the ordinances and laws of the State legislatures, the
orders and proclamations of military chieftains, and even
upon the results of popular votes given at the elections ;
against the doctrine that the will of God and the duty of
his church and of his people is to be learned from partic-
ular providential events, and that the teachings of the
Scriptures are to be interpreted by these providences ;
against the sanction given, both directly and indirectly,
to the usurpation by the secular and military powers of
between himself, Dr. J- H, Brooks, of St. Louis, Mr. Edward Bredell, of
St. Louis, and Dr. J. H. Van Dyke, of New York, in the study of Dr. Van
Dyke, in New York City. It came not from " hot-headed Southern preju-
dices," but from cool, intelligent Northern principle!
1 During the later years of the war the Northern Assemblies denied that
Presbyterians had done anything to better the negro's religious condition.
They therein contradicted their previous declarations.
THE '' DECLARATION AND TESTIMONY:' 445
authority in and over the worship and government of
the church ; against that alliance which has been virtually
formed by the church with the State ; against the perse-
cution which for five years past has been carried on with
increasing malignity against those who had refused to
sanction or acquiesce in these departures of the church
from the foundations of truth and righteousness; against
the widespread and destructive perversion of the commis-
sion of the ministry and the province of church courts,
which as such could know no difference between Jew and
Gentile, *' Rebel " or *' Yankee " ; against the action of the
Assembly in reference to the churches in the seceded and
border States, and against the basing of the action on
assertion of what the Assembly had the clearest evidence
was not true, viz., on the affirmation that the General
Assembly of the Confederate States was organized in
order to render their aid in the attempt to establish, by
means of the rebellion, ''a separate national existence, and
conserve and perpetuate the system of slavery "/ against the
Assembly's making the Board of Domestic Missions a
court of final arid superior jurisdiction to judge of the
orthodoxy of the ministry and the soundness of their
views touching the nature of the Government of the
United States, and the doctrine of States rights, the free-
dom of the negroes, and the various important questions
touching their social and civil status, then and prospect-
ive ; against every movement in the church which looked
toward a union of the state and church, or a subordina-
tion of the one to the other, or the interference of either
with the jurisdiction of the other. The paper further
presented as reasons for the testimony, that the errors
testified against were contrary to the Word of God and
subversive of its inspiration and supreme authority ; con-
trary to the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church as taught
446 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
in her confession, catechism, and constitution; that the
errors tended to obliterate all the lines of separation be-
tween the civil and ecclesiastical powers, to bring the min-
istry and all the ordinances of religion and the authority
of the church into public disrepute, to keep up strife and
alienation between brethren of a common faith, and thus
delay the pacification of the country ; and that they are
schismatical, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
man. The protestants further declared that they would
not in any way aid or abet the Assembly in its innovating
measures, and would withdraw support from any men or
institutions who gave themselves to carrying out said
measures.^
At the meeting of the Synod in the fall of 1865, Dr. R. J.
Breckinridge offered a paper calling in question the right
of those members of the Presbytery of Louisville, and
others who had indorsed and adopted the paper styled
the " Declaration and Testimony," to sit and act as mem-
bers of the Synod of Kentucky. The paper asserted that
the signers of the " Declaration and Testimony " had as-
sumed *' such a state of open rebellion against the church,
and such open contempt and defiance of her Scriptural
authority, and such contempt of her faith and order and
acts, as to render each and every one of them unqualified,
unfit, and incompetent to sit and act as a member of that
or any other court of the Presbyterian Church." But this
paper was defeated by a vote of 22 to 107. Moreover,
this Synod adopted an elaborate paper offered by Judge
Sampson, in which it took exception to the Assembly's
order to the Board of Missions to appoint as missionaries
" none but those who give satisfactory evidence of their
1 See the " Declaration and Testimony," published at the office of the
"St. Louis Presbyterian," 1866, also in Grasty's "Life of McPheeters,"
pp. 304 ff-
OLD SCHOOL ASSEMBLY, NORTH, 1866. 447
loyalty to the National Government, and that they are in
cordial sympathy with the General Assembly in its testi-
monies on doctrine, loyalty, and freedom." But in the
same paper, Synod, by a vote of 57 to 35, expressed its
judgment that neither this action nor any of the acts and
deliverances of the Assembly or the state of the country
during the war justified a withdrawal from its connection
with the General Assembly ; and it again asserted that it
would " adhere with unbroken purpose to the Presbyte-
rian Church in the United States of America, and would
oppose every effort to interrupt" its ''ecclesiastical rela-
tions with the General Assembly."^
Acts and deliverances of the Assembly of 1866, ordain-
ing the execution of the orders of 1865, were still more
intolerable. This Assembly excluded the commissioners
of the Presbytery of Louisville from their seats in the
Assembly by a simple resolution, without hearing, ** and
on premises whose statements were utterly false, and one
of them defamatory of a minister of good standing." ^ It
ordered *' certain persons — some of them under process
before the church session, and their case under careful
consideration before the Presbytery — to be recognized as
elders of the Walnut Street Church, without the possibility
of any knowledge on the part of the Assembly whether
they had been duly elected and were lawful ruling elders
or not."^ It initiated steps for organic reunion with the
New School body, '* in utter disregard of the testimonies
1 Also, by a vote of 54 to 46, it expressed its disapprobation of the terms
of the " Declaration and Testimony," and of its spirit and intent, indicated
on its face, as looking to the further agitation of the church, if not to its
division at a time when great mutual forbearance was called for among
brethren. (See Alexander's " Digest," p. 428.) This account of the Synod
of Kentucky of 1865 is told here almost in Mr. Alexander's words.
2 " Minutes of Southern Assembly of 1867," p. 182. Compare " Minutes
of Assembly, North, of 1866," p. 12.
3 " Minutes of Southern Assembly of 1867," p. 183. Compare " Minutes
of General Assembly, North, of 1866," p. 54.
448 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
of 1837-38 against errors which the New School body-
not only had not renounced, but, on the contrary, had
added to largely by its monstrous Erastian deliverances
on the state of the country in 1863, 1864, and 1865, and
the monstrous deliverances just then made indorsing the
Civil Rights Bill and negro suffrage as against the Presi-
dent, and calling for more blood in the condign punish-
ment of the chief fomenters of the rebellion." ^ It passed
an act ** known as the Gurley ipso facto order, declaring,
first, the ' Declaration and Testimony ' to be slanderous
and schismatical,^ then summoning its signers to the bar
of the next Assembly for trial, without other citation, or
other tabling of charges; devising penalties unknown to
the constitution, and utterly incongruous to the Presby-
terian theory of the teaching rulers — interdiction of these
rulers sitting in any church court higher than the ses-
sion ; and declaring the ipso facto dissolution of Presby-
teries which refused to execute this unlawful penalty,"
and enrolled as entitled to a seat in the body any persons
designated in the Gurley order.^ The pastoral letter and
the memorials adopted by the Assembly in reference to the
same general subject were equally worthy of odium.
At the meeting of the Synod of Kentucky, October,
1866, it disregarded the Gurley ipso facto order, and called
the roll of all the constituent members and churches of the
1 " Minutes of General Assembly, South, of 1867," p. 182. Compare
" Minutes of General Assembly, North, of 1866," p. 44.
2 " It is a remarkable fact that in a debate extending through two weeks,
not even one speaker from the majority has touched the merits of the ques-
tion before the house either by exposing the unsoundness of the principles
contained in the ' Declaration and Testimony,' or the impropriety of the lan-
guage in which these principles are embodied. We have had denunciation
without measure, but not a word of argument or proof." — Dr. J. H. Brooks,
in " Concise Record of Assembly of 1866."
3 " Minutes of 1867," p. 183; " Minutes of Assembly, North, of 1866,"
pp. 60, 61. For a very just exhibition of " the bald confusion and incon-
gruity of thought in the Gurley ipso facto resolutions, see Laws' letter to the
Synod of Missouri (O. S.), pp. 6 flf.
THE KENTUCKY SYNOD OUTLAWED. 449
Synod. A certain segment of the Synod, under the lead
of Dr. Breckinridge, who proposed to follow the Assem-
bly's Gurley orders, withdrew. Synod pronounced the
Gurley order an overstretch of power, and said that in the
declared contingent dissolution of the Presbyteries which
that order effects, the Assembly had attributed to its
measures and ordinances a force and operation counte-
nanced by no provision or principle of the church. But
it declared that it was not the Synod's purpose to make
any change of its formal ecclesiastical relations, but to con-
tinue to stand in its present position of open protest and
resistance to the enforcement of the acts of the General
Assemblies of 1861-66, "concerning doctrine, loyalty,
and freedom, as unconstitutional, and therefore null and
void."i
The number of ministers who withdrew was 32. Over
half of them were without charges. They took with them
28 ruHng elders, representing a membership of 1800. But
108 ministers maintained connection with the constitu-
tional Synod, representing a membership of about 9800.
This Synod addressed a letter '* to the churches and peo-
ple under its charge in vindication of its course." ^
The General Assembly of 1867 adopted an Encyclopae-
dic Act known as the ** Report of the Committee of Ten,"
wherein they crowded into one indistinguishable mass
the judicial cases of near two hundred men, formally sum-
moned to the Assembly ; cases of repeal referred to this
by the preceding Assembly ; cases of irregularity and
revolutionary proceedings in Presbyteries and Synods;
cases of contested seats in the Assembly; they passed
upon all these without any of the usual forms of hearing
and trial, by one sweeping sentence of outlawry of two
1 Alexander's " Digest," pp. 428, 429.
* Ibid.y p. 429. Compare " Minutes of Synod of Kentucky of 1866," p. 27.
45 O THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
Synods — Kentucky and Missouri — and twelve Presby-
teries of the church ; they declared the seceders from the
Kentucky Synod the true Synod, and declared the regular
Synod and its Presbyteries no longer the Synod and Pres-
byteries of the Presbyterian Church. It also passed sev-
eral acts in accord with the foregoing " for depriving the
churches of Kentucky of their property and the control of
the schools which their piety and liberality had founded." ^
Hence, the Synod, at a called meeting in Lexington, in
June, 1867, declared that the General Assembly had
ceased any longer to be a constitutional body, had become
a schismatic and revolutionary body, '* was no longer gov-
erned by the constitution, but controlled by the will of
the majority ; that the Assembly having by its own acts
separated from the Synod, the Synod now makes solemn
declaration of this fact upon its records, and, further, de-
clares that it will in future govern its actions by this recog-
nized sundering of all its relations to the Assembly, by
the act of that body itself." ^
At a subsequent meeting called for the purpose. Synod
prepared a letter to the Southern Assembly, to sit at
Nashville in November, 1867. The letter expressed the
Synod's belief that ** Southern Presbyterian churches and
church courts have, in a good degree, preserved pure and
unimpaired the constitutional Presbyterianism of the un-
divided church from 1837 to 1861," and asserted that the
Synod with its Presbyteries, churches, and people, still
true to the native instinct of genuine Presbyterianism, and
unwiUing to stand isolated from their brethren, desired
still to be in communion and organic union with all who
maintain the principles of church order so dear to their
fathers and themselves. It further asserted that it was a
1 " Minutes of Assembly, South, of 1867," p. 183.
2 Alexander's " Digest," p. 429.
CONSUMMATION OF THE UNION 451
first duty to ascertain whether such a union could be
formed, and to what extent.
As a step toward the accomplishment of this end, the
letter tells how they had come to be an independent
Synod ; makes a statement of the doctrines and principles
for which this Synod and its Presbyteries had been con-
tending in their controversies with the General Assembly,
North — setting forth their views concerning the doctrine
of the Kingship of Christ, and the manner in which Christ
executeth the office of a king in his visible church; con-
cerning the origin, nature, and functions of church govern-
ment as contrasted with and related to the civil govern-
ment ; concerning the powers of the several courts of the
church, their relation to each other and to the office-
bearers and people ; concerning the interpretation of pur
Form of Government and Discipline with reference to the
functions, powers, and mutual relations of the courts of
the church.
The Synod expressed a desire to have its letter embodied
in the historical records of the church as a record of the
church's appreciation of the inestimable value of these
principles as the bulwark of Christian liberty, wherewith
Christ sets his people free, and a definitely expressed
statute testimony, to which ready appeal *' might be made
thereafter " as direct authority in support of ** those who
stand for the truth as it is in Jesus against those who
again may treacherously attempt to subvert the doctrine
and order of Christ's house." ^ The Kentucky Presby-
teries were warmly welcomed. Their commissioners ap-
peared in the Assembly of 1868.
The Southern Church had again taken a large body
into her bosom ; but it was no aHen body. It was a mar-
1 For the entire letter see " Minutes of the General Assembly, South, of
1867," p. 784.
452 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
riage between two who saw alike substantially. The
Synod of Kentucky had been an Old School body. It
had been a witness for ** the supremacy of Christ's crown
and covenant."
In 1870 the Associate Reformed Presbytery of Kentucky
was received into organic union with the Southern Church,
on the same terms that the Associate Reformed Presby-
tery of Alabama had been. It brought four ministers,
their elders and churches.
Union with the Synod of Missouri was effected in 1874.
The history of this Synod between 1861 and 1867 is so
like that of Kentucky that it may be dispatched in a few
words. In October of 1861 it unanimously declared that
the Assembly of 1861 had in the notorious Spring Reso-
lutions taken an action that was " unscriptural, unwise,
and unjust; of no binding force whatever on this Synod,
nor upon the members of the Presbyterian Church within "
its bounds. Nor did it feel less keenly the apostasy and
usurpations of the successive Assemblies while the war
lasted. Its ministers and people suffered grievously at the
hands of the '' loyal " brethren at the North : witness the
case of the devoted and heroic McPheeters.^ It, too, was
horrified at the measures of the Pittsburg Assembly of
1865, which, at a time when " the soldiers who had stood
arrayed against each other on the battlefield were meet-
ing as friends," and when " wise men in the councils of the
nation rejoiced in the hope of a speedy restoration of fra-
ternal feeling throughout the land," passed orders at once
ungenerous and unscriptural — " required all sessions. Pres-
byteries, and Synods of the church under its jurisdiction
to examine persons, not from the North, but from the
South, touching their relation to the Confederate Govern-
1 See Grasty's " Life of McPheeters." Nothing more heroic than the life
of Dr. McPheeters happened during our Civil War.
UNION WITH THE SYNOD OF MISSOURI, O. S. 453
ment and their views of slavery," and compel them " to
make confession of sin under pain of exclusion from the
fellowship and sympathy of their brethren in the Lord," if
they had voluntarily supported the Confederate Govern-
ment or had certain views touching slavery.
Many Missouri ministers and elders had signed the
noble " Declaration and Testimony " in the fall of 1865.^
The reader recalls that the St. Louis Assembly of 1866
adopted the Gurley ipso facto order, declaring the disso-
lution of such Presbyteries and Synods as should allow a
signer of the '' Declaration and Testimony " to take his seat
as a member of the court. The Synod at its next meeting
resolved, on the ground that ** the Standards of the church
are authoritative above the order of any church court,"
** that the signers of the * Declaration and Testimony ' are
not slanderers, schismatics, and rebels against ecclesiastical
authority, but have simply exercised a great Protestant
right and discharged a solemn duty ; . . . that the Synod,
having no evidence that these brethren are not in good
and regular standing in their respective Presbyteries and
Sessions, cannot, without violating the constitution, deny
them seats." ^
Upon the adoption of these resolutions a minority of
the Synod withdrew from the house. The Synod or-
ganized by the seceders has been popularly known as the
Assembly's Synod. The Constitutional Synod continued
to be known up to 1874 as the Old School Synod of
Missouri.
The Old School Synod proposed to continue its con-
nection with the Old School Assembly, North, but not to
sink its witness for the non-secular character of the church.
The Assembly of 1867 declared that the commissioners
1 " Minutes of the Synod of Missouri (O. S.), 1869," pp. 22 et seq.
2 Alexander's " Digest," pp. 431, 432.
454 ^-^-^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
who represented the Presbyteries in connection with the
Assembly's Synod were entitled to seats, " and ordered the
signers of the ' Declaration and Testimony,' and those who
had acted with them, to repair to " the Presbyteries and
Synod, thus recognized, '* and to sign a paper disowning
any intention of disrespect to the Assembly or of rebellion
against its authority in all that had been done by them
during the controversy." The Old School Synod of 1867
renewed its stand of 1866. It would abandon neither its
right to a place in the Old School Assembly, nor its wit-
nessing for the non-secular character of the church.^ But
it was never able to convert the mother-church to the
truth.
The Presbyterian Church, North, in spite of the differ-
ence of faith, ruthlessly paid court in 1872 to our Synod;
but to no purpose. The Synod resolved, 1873, to unite
with the Southern Presbyterian Church. The Synod
could not unite with the Northern Church without merg-
ing its witness for ** the great principle — the exclusiveness
of the spiritual vocation of the church — which it had pre-
served intact y^ It could not extinguish the lamp of its
*' own history by hiding under the bushel of any church
stained with political corruptions." But it could unite
with the Presbyterian Church, South, for that church had
maintained equally with the Synod of Missouri the non-
secular character of the church, and " the subordination
and fidelity of the church courts, and especially of the
General Assembly, to the constitution of the Presbyterian
Church."^ It had been against the unconstitutional rule
of a bare majority.
In 1874 the commissioners of the six Presbyteries of the
1 See for these quotations and for authority for the statements, " Minutes
of Old School Synod of Missouri of 1869," pp. 22-26.
2 Laws' letter to the Synod of Missouri of 1872, p. 44.
5 Laws' letter to the Synod of Missouri (O. S.) of 1872, p. 26.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH OTHER BODIES. 455
Synod of Missouri were welcomed and enrolled as mem-
bers of the Assembly, South, at Columbus.^
Union with other Associated Reformed Presbyteries in
North and South Carolina is perhaps near at hand.
3. Fraternal Correspondence with Other Bodies. — In
1 86 1 the Constituting Assembly, out of its appreciation of
the precious import of that memorable prayer addressed
by the adorable Redeemer to the Father, in full view of
the agony of the garden and of the cross — ** * That they
all might be one, as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be one in us, that the world may be-
lieve that thou hast sent me ' — and impelled by a sincere
desire to meet the full measure of responsibihty which"
devolved upon it as a branch of Christ's visible church
in the accomplishment of this vastly important endeavor
avowed that it would earnestly try to draw closer the
bonds of Christian intercourse and communion between
all the churches of like faith and order in the Confederate
States of America.^ The Assembly has been true to its
avowal. As a result of its endeavors it has been able to
point to several unions, whose history has just been detailed.
The same Assembly, in the '' Letter to all the Churches
of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth," as we have seen,
expressed its desire to cultivate peace and charity with all
fellow-Christians throughout the world. The Assembly
of 1862 affirmed its beHef that the unity of God's people
is a reality, and that it is of the highest importance that
this unity should be manifested to the world ; and declared
its determination, in cases where such manifestation was
not practicable, to do all consistent with truth to promote
peace and charity between itself and other churches.^
1 The Synod of Missouri brought 67 ministers, 141 churches, and 8000
communicants.
2 " Minutes of 1861," p. 13.
3 " Minutes of 1862," p. 14.
456 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
The Assembly of 1 866 went so far as to appoint a com-
mittee of ''chosen brethren" — Drs. Hoge, Palmer, and
Girardeau — to bear the church's desire for fellowship, as
far as practicable, with all true disciples of our common
Lord and Saviour in all the world, *' to such Christian
churches and societies in the kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, and, if it deemed best, on the continent of
Europe also, as the providence of God might designate,
and to explain to them, as opportunity might offer, the
character, condition, work, and prospects of our beloved
Zion ; and to receive such contributions in money as might
be voluntarily offered in aid of our general schemes of
evangelization.^
In accord with the desires thus expressed, the church
has, in addition to the correspondence eventuating in the
cases of union of which we have related, carried on a ge-
nial correspondence with the Reformed Episcopal Church
in the United States ; has enjoyed similar interchanges
with several European churches, notably with the im-
poverished but heroic Waldensian churches, for whom it
has long maintained the successful Mission School of
Miss Ronzone.
The Southern Church has recognized the Christian
character of non-Presbyterian ecclesiastical bodies by the
interchange of Christian greetings, e.g., that of the Meth-
odist, Cumberland Presbyterian, etc. It has also recog-
nized the Christian character of, and exchanged Christian
greetings with, certain non-ecclesiastical bodies, e.g., with
the Y. M. C. A., 2 though with some scruples as to the
propriety of the course. It has continued to be chary
about the Evangelical Alliance. But after a little hesita-
tion in recognizing '* the principle of an irresponsible alli-
ance," the church, under the lead of Dr. Stuart Robinson
1 " Minutes of i866," p. 433. 2 " Minutes of 1881," p. 394.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH REFORMED CHURCH. 457
and others, bore an influential part in framing the constitu-
tion ancT insuring the success of the General Presbyterian
Alliance. This great conferential council, in '' seeking the
welfare of the weak and persecuted churches, dissemi-
nating information concerning the kingdom of Christ,
commending the Presbyterian system as Scriptural, dis-
tributing mission work," etc.,^ has met hearty sympathy
at the hands of a large part of the Southern Church.^
The Southern Presbyterian Church is allowed about thirty
delegates in the council.
In 1 87 1 a correspondence was begun with the General
Synod of the Reformed Church in America^ popularly
known as the Dutch Reformed Church. Owing to the
non-secular character of this body, its thorough-going
Calvinistic creed and Presbyterian poHty, this correspond-
ence, opened for ^' the cultivation of a mutual spirit of
Christian sympathy and brotherly love," bore fruit very
soon in a plan of active cooperation in several important
departments of church work.^ This plan has been fruitful
1 " Minutes of 1877," p. 488.
2 For the constitution of the Alliance see " Minutes of Prestyterian Church,
South, 1877," p. 492; Alexander's " Digest," p. 508.
3 In 1875 an elaborate plan of cooperation was adopted by the Assembly
on the one hand and the General Synod on the other. This plan embraced
features of co-working in publication, home missions, foreign missions, and
education. The publishing-house of each denomination was to be " the agent
and depository for the sale of the publications of the other denominations."
The publication board and committee were " empowered to unite in the pub-
lication of a child's paper." It was " recommended that the members of
the Reformed Church consider with great sympathy that department of the
Assembly's home missionary work" which was concerned with the " evan-
gelization of the colored population of the South," " and send their contri-
butions to the general cause to the treasurer of the Assembly's Committee."
The plan settled the important principle that the contiguous foreign mis-
sions of the two churches ought to aim at the establishment of one united
church, and decided that the principle should be carried into practice wher-
ever such contiguity should exist, that such churches should " treat each
other as though they had been planted and nurtured by one and the same
denomination." It decided that young men in either church who should
contemplate the work of foreign missions should upon recommendation from
the board or committee of their own church be as eligible to the appointment
458 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
of much good in the foreign mission fields. The mission-
aries of the two churches, who are contiguous, labor to-
gether for the upbuilding of one united church. In general
there is no other church with which the Southern Church
has enjoyed such hearty and noble good-fellowship.
Correspondence with the Presbyterian Church i7i the
United States of America was begu7i in 1870. The rela-
tions with this church up to 1870 had been by no means
pleasant. The unconstitutional and Erastian measures
which the Old School Assembly of 1861 enacted — the
Spring Resolutions — were the forerunners of a long series
of acts of usurpation and bitter hostility. The reader can
guess at these from what has been brought out in connec-
tion with the histories of the Synod of Kentucky and
Missouri. Passing over, therefore, all the irritating, rasp-
ing acts of intervening years, we come at once to the
Pittsburg Assembly, Old School, of 1865, some of whose
acts, even at the cost of slight repetition, it is necessary to
place before the reader at this point.
by that of the other as by their own, and that such persons should come
under the care of the board or committee appointing them, but should not be
required to transfer their ecclesiastical relations to any American Presbytery
or classis of the body into whose missionary service they should come. The
churches were to encourage an equal acquaintance with the missions of the
two churches, in order that the variety of missionary fields thus presented
might g^ve scope and stimulation to the missionary spirit of the two bodies.
To this end there was to be speedy communication of matters of special in-
terest in the missions of either board or committee to the other.
The students of either church were to be allowed to study in the semina-
ries of the other; and such students as chose to study in a seminary of the
other church were not to suffer adverse discrimination in the appropriation
of funds for their support by the board or committee of their own church.
It was provided that any provision of this scheme of cooperative union
might at any time be omitted or abrogated by either body without impairing
the validity of those other provisions on which they should agree. The joint
publication of the paper was discontinued early. The cooperation has not
been as active in home missions as might reasonably have been hoped. But
there has been much earnest and hearty cooperation where circumstances
have called for it along other lines. (See " Minutes of 1875," pp. 25 ff. ;
Alexander's " Digest," pp. 446-448.)
RELATIONS WITH THE ASSEMBLY, NORTH, 459
In response to an overture from the Presbytery of Rich-
land, O., and certain members of the Presbytery of Madi-
son, Ind., *' asking the Assembly to drop from its roll the
names of certain ministers, Presbyteries, and Synods in
the so-called Confederate States," the Assembly replied:
Whereas, during the existence of the great rebellion which has disturbed
the peace and threatened the life of the nation, a large number of Presby-
teries and Synods in the Southern States, whose names are on the roll of the
General Assembly as constituent parts of the body, have organized an Assem-
bly denominated " The General Assembly of the Confederate States of Amer-
ica," in order to render their aid in the attempt to establish, by means of the
rebellion, a separate national existence, "and conserve and perpetuate the
system of slavery," 1 therefore.
Resolved, I. That this Assembly regards the perpetuation of negro slavery
as a great crime, both against our National Government and against God ; and
the secession of those Presbyteries and Synods from the Presbyterian Church,
under such circumstances and for such reasons, as unwarranted, schismatical,
and unconstitutional. 2. That the General Assembly does not intend to aban-
don the territory in which these churches are found, or to compromise the
rights of any of the church courts, or ministers, ruling elders, and private
members belonging to them, who are loyal to the government of the United
States and to the Presbyterian Church. On the contrary, this General
Assembly will recognize such loyal persons as constituting the churches,
Presbyteries, and Synods in all the bounds of the schism, and will use
earnest endeavors to restore and revive all such church courts. 3. The
Assembly hereby declares that it will recognize as the church the members
of any church within the bounds of the schism who are loyal to the govern-
ment of the United States of America, and whose views are in harmony with
the doctrines of the Confession of Faith and with the several testimonies of
the Presbyterian Church on the subject of domestic slavery. And where
any three ministers who entertain the views above mentioned belong to the
same Presbytery, such ministers are hereby authorized and directed to con-
tinue their organization as a Presbytery; or any two such ministers are
authorized to receive any minister of the same views, regularly dismissed to
them, and thus continue their organizations with the churches above de-
scribed in the same bounds, in connection with this Assembly. But if a
sufficient number are not found in one Presbytery, they are authorized to
unite with the loyal ministers and churches of one or more adjacent Presby-
teries, retaining the name of one or both such united Presbyteries as shall
be deemed expedient. A similar course is also authorized with regard to
Synods." 2
1 A misquotation. 2 " Minutes of 1865," p. 560.
46o THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
In answer to an overture from the Presbytery of Cali-
fornia inquiring what course should be pursued in admit-
ting to their body ministers who were known to be disloyal
to the government, or who might be suspected of disloy-
alty, the Assembly replied : that the Presbytery had a right
to examine the intrant '' on all subjects which seriously
affect the peace, purity, and unity of the church " ; that
it was an imperative duty in the current '* circumstances
of the country, when, after the crushing by military force
an atrocious rebellion against the United States for the
perpetuation of slavery, many ministers who " had aided
this revolt " might seek admission into Presbyteries located
in the loyal States." Further, the Assembly ordered that
all " Presbyteries examine every minister applying for
admission from any Presbytery or ecclesiastical body in
the Southern States, on the following points " : first, as to
whether he had in any way countenanced the rebellion ;
second, '' as to whether he holds that the system of negro
slavery in the South is a divine institution, and that it is
the ' peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve '
the institution." It ordered that a man holding these
views should be required to renounce them before recep-
tion into Presbytery. It gave a similar injunction to its
Synods about receiving Presbyteries. It laid the same order
on sessions to regulate their reception of private members.^
It is no wonder that each of these sets of resolutions
irritated the Southern Church. It was not true that the
Presbyteries and Synods in the Southern Church organ-
ized an Assembly in order to render their aid in the
attempt to establish by means of the rebellion a separate
national existence and to conserve and perpetuate the
existence of slavery. It was antichristian for the Northern
Assembly ** to set up a new test and establish a new term
1 " Minutes of 1865," pp. 562-564.
RELATIONS WITH THE ASSEMBLY, NORTH. 46 1
of membership in the church and of standing in the min-
istry— a test authorized neither by the Word of God nor
the Confession of Faith, and contrary to the uniform
declaration and practice of this church from its founda-
tion up to the year of 1861." The recognition of two or
three members of a Presbytery as a Presbytery because
they had been "loyal," and two or three members of a
local church as the church because they had been loyal,
and the investing such loyal parties with all the rights,
religious and secular, belonging to the whole Presbytery
or the whole church, was calculated to stir up strife and
enable the *' loyal " twos and threes to filch away the
ecclesiastical property throughout the South. These
resolutions were iniquitous. Their falsehood was clearly
revealed and their iniquity nobly withstood in the Assem-
bly by Dr. S. R. Wilson and other protestants.^ But in
answer to Dr. Wilson's protest the Assembly again charged
the Southern States with sinful treason, and again mis-
represented the Southern Church in relation to slavery,
and reaffirmed the necessity of confession and repentance
for the grievous sin of treason before the rebels could be
received into the bosom of the church.^
The Assembly of 1866, at St. Louis, made an impres-
sion not a whit pleasanter. That was the Assembly of
the notorious Gurley ipso facto order, which did such foul
wrong to the Synods of Missouri and Kentucky. That
Assembly avowedly indorsed the anti-Southern attitude
of the Pittsburg Assembly as to the conditions on which an
ex-rebel might be received into the bosom of the mother-
church.^ That was the Assembly, too, that wrenched
the Wall Street Church property in Louisville from the
1 " Minutes of Assembly" (O. S.), 1865, pp. 580-584.
2 " Minutes" (O. S.), p. 586.
3 " Minutes (O. S.) of 1866," pp. 79, 85, 114-117.
462 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. v.
Southern members by the aid of machinery prepared by
the Pittsburg Assembly. And that Assembly gave place
in its minutes to the memorial of the St. Louis Convention
of May 1 5 to 1 8, 1 866 — a paper, if possible, more unworthy
of a body of Christian Presbyters than the other we have
referred to.
The Assembly of 1867 maintained the ground taken in
the preceding Assemblies. But if the Old School Assem-
bly had made herself somewhat disagreeable up to 1867
to the Southern Presbyterians, much more had her sister,
the New School, as the curious may see by consulting her
minutes from 1861 to 1866.
In 1868 the Old School Assembly acknowledged the
separate and independent existence of the Presbyterian
Church, South. In 1869, on the claim of ** holding the
same ancient symbols of faith, the same forms of govern-
ment and of worship," the Old School Assembly expressed
a desire to be united with the Southern Presbyterian
Church.^ In 1870 the United Assembly ^ of the Old and
the New School Presbyterians sent delegates to the South-
ern Assembly sitting at Louisville, to confer *' in respect
to opening a friendly correspondence " between the two
Assemblies. This overture was based on a false assump-
tion, viz., that mutual grievances existed in reference to
which it was necessary to arbitrate. The Southern Church
had never made a single act of aggression on the Northern
Church. It had never attempted to wrest property from
the Northern Church. It had never hesitated in receiv-
ing members on the face of their credentials. From 1861
to 1867 it had given a general consistent testimony to the
non-secular character of the church, for the spirituality of
the kingdom of Jesus Christ. *' No ingenuity of sophistry
1 " Minutes of 1870," p. 50.
a Union of the two bodies had occurred in the fall of 1869.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 463
can transmute into political dogmas the scant allusions to
the historical reality of the great struggle then pending,
or the thankful recognition, in the middle of a paragraph,
of the unanimity with which an invaded people rose to
the defense of their hearth-stones and the graves of their
sires," nor what was said about the conserving of slavery.
The Southern Assembly answered that the obstructions
in the way of a cordial intercourse between the two bodies
were entirely of a public nature, and involved grave and
fundamental principles. It pointed to its records in proof
that it had engaged in no act of hostility toward the
Northern Church. It declared that it felt no enmity to
that church, and that it was ready *' to exercise toward the
General Assembly, North, such amity as fidelity to our
principles could under any circumstances permit." And
it proceeded to name the difficulties which lay in the way
of cordial correspondence, and which should ** be distinctly
met and removed," viz. : i. Both the wings of the United
Assembly, North, had fatally complicated themselves with
the state in the political utterances deliberately pronounced
year after year. It was their duty to purge themselves
of this error '' and place the crown once more on the
head of Jesus Christ as King in Zion." For the Southern
Church to undertake official correspondence with them as
they were would be for it to blunt its testimony concern-
ing the nature and mission of the church. 2. The union
consummated between the Old and New School Assem-
blies, North, had been *' accomplished by methods which
in our judgment involve a total surrender of all the great
testimonies for the fundamental doctrines of grace " made
in 1838. ''The United Assembly stands of necessity
upon an allowed latitude of interpretation of Standards." ^
1 A similar fusion took place between ourselves and the United Synod ;
but the difference between the two cases is wide. " The Synod of the South
464 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
3. Many members of the Southern Church but a short
time before had been expelled '' violently and unconstitu-
tionally " from the Old School Assembly, under charges
which, if true, rendered them utterly infamous before the
church and the world. Every principle of honor and faith
called for the unequivocal repudiation of that interpretation
of the law under which these men were expelled, as a con-
dition precedent to any official correspondence.^ 4. Simi-
lar charges had been preferred against the whole Southern
Presbyterian Church. They could not be quietly ignored.
If true, the Southern Presbyterians were not worthy of
the "confidence, respect, and Christian honor and love"
which were tendered in the overture. If untrue, all that
was Christian and manly called for their retraction.^ This
was not resentment, but the homage which should always
be paid to truth.
The Northern Church was not ready to sweep the ob-
stacles away, and efforts to establish correspondence were
discontinued till 1873. In that year the Northern Assem-
bly declared that in accordance with a resolution unani-
mously adopted by the two bodies then constituting the
reunited church, all action touching the brethren of the
Southern Presbyterian Church and the brethren of the Old
united with us upon the first interchange of doctrinal views, upon a square
acceptance of the Standards, without any metaphysical hair-splitting to find a
sense in which to receive them, and without any expunging of whole chapters
from the history of the past, with the sacred testimonies with which these
are filled. It is not, therefore, the amalgamation of these bodies at the North
which embarrasses us, but it is the method by which it is achieved." (" Min-
utes of 1870," p. 539— the pastoral letter explaining to the people the treat-
ment of the Northern delegates.)
1 This the pastoral letter further explicates, as follows : " We require as
an indispensable condition to all correspondence a renunciation of that theory
of church government which practically obliterates the lower church courts
and destroys the appellate character of the General Assembly, under which
that unrighteous decision was reached against the Synods of Kentucky and
Missouri." (" Minutes of 1870," p. 540.)
* " Minutes of 1870," p. 450.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 465
School Synod of Missouri had been since the reunion, and
was then, null and void.^ It expressed confidence in the
Christian character of the Southern brethren, and affirmed
its belief that the barriers of separation would be removed
on more intimate communion. With regard to the rela-
tion of church to state, the Assembly called attention to
certain statements and principles found in their Standards.^
It appointed a committee to confer with a like committee
to be appointed by the Southern Church.^
In response to this overture, and at the instance of two
restive Presbyteries, the Southern Assembly showed, by
appealing to its records, that in the true idea of the com-
munion of the saints it had ever been willing to hold fel-
lowship with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincer-
ity, and especially to establish intimate relations with all
bodies of the Presbyterian Church struggling to maintain
the true principles of the same confession. It recalled and
indorsed the position taken by the Assembly of 1870 in
setting forth the barriers to union. Nevertheless, because
of its desire to follow the things that make for peace, it
appointed an uninstructed committee to confer with the
committee of the Northern Church. It candidly asserted,
however, that it did not contemplate in this move organic
union.* A minority in the Assembly, respectable for its
size and ability, was in favor of declining official corre-
spondence until the fundamental difficulties which had been
set forth in 1870 should be removed. This minority was
sagacious enough to see that the overture of the North-
ern Assembly of 1873 afforded no sufficient reason for
1 The resolution referred to was in these words : " That no rule or prece-
dent which does not stand approved by both bodies shall be of any authority
in the united body, except in so far as such rule or precedent may affect the
rights of property founded thereon." (" Minutes of 1870," p. 516.)
2 It made reference to Confession of Faith, chap, xxxi., sec. iv., and to
Form of Government, chap, i., sees. i. and vii.
3 " Minutes of 1874," pp. 500 ff. * Ibid., p. 503.
466 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
appointing the committee of conference. It saw that the
overture evaded '' the very point it pretended to meet,
assuring us that both bodies composing their Assembly
unanimously adopted a resolution making ^ null and void
and of no binding effect all action touching their brethren
adhering to the Southern Assembly/ " whereas the united
body had lately adopted, and made a part of their record,
a paper which indorsed in the most formal and unequivo-
cal manner the very principles which the Southern Church
has always protested against, viz., a decision of the civil
court in the case of the Walnut Street Church, Louis-
ville, Ky.i
Nor was the minority gifted with a constitution so con-
tradictory as to be able to appreciate the expressions of
confidence in the ** soundness of doctrine and Christian
character" of the Southern Church, contained in the re-
cent overture, in the face of the abusive and slanderous
charges, touching doctrine, character, and motives, so often
preferred and never once openly and squarely retracted.
As for the reference on the part of the Northern Church
to the definition in their Standards touching the relation
of church to state, it was puerile. It had held those Stan-
dards in 1 86 1 ; had held them through all those years from
1 86 1 to 1867. It was known to have formed the habit of
breaking them. It gloried in having broken them, in hav-
1 " Minutes of 1874," p. 465. For the estimate which the Northern As-
sembly put on the decision, see its " Digest " (Moore's), pp. 250, 251, where
we have these words : "In an elaborate opinion the judges have held for
substance that the courts of law must accept as final and conclusive the deci-
sion of the General Assembly on subjects purely ecclesiastical, and must give
full effect to these decisions in settling the property rights of litigants. The
Assembly will not be slow to appreciate the value of this opinion." (Moore's
" Digest," p. 251.)
Herein we see that the General Assembly, North, has solemnly and form-
ally adopted the theory that the General Assembly is the judge of the con-
stitutionality of its own acts. It can, if it chooses, by the voice of its bare
majority deprive all lower courts of every right. It can, if it chooses, plun-
der, ad infinitum^ Synods, Presbyteries, and congregations.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 467
ing wheeled the church into the political fight. It had
never gone over its records. It had made no confession
of error for discrowning Jesus and putting Caesar in his
stead. For these and such reasons the minority held that
to change posture toward the Northern Assembly was for
the Southern Church to suppress its testimony to the truth
and break the church's glorious record in the past.^
The committees of conference met in Baltimore in Janu-
ary, 1875. The Northern committee proposed that the
Southern committee join with itself in recommending to
the respective Assemblies the interchange of delegates, and
thus their reciprocal recognition of each other as corre-
sponding bodies. It professed its hope that such a course
would speedily lead to an adjustment of matters of equal
interest to both bodies, in the work of missions at home
and abroad, and to cooperation in the great work of evan-
gelization. It did not know of any reasons why fraternal
relations should not be established.^
The Southern committee proceeded to set forth in a
manly and Christian way the obstacles which had debarred
the Southern Assembly from holding official intercourse
with the Northern Assembly, and what was necessary for
their removal. It summed up these obstructions under
two heads: ''Ujijiist and injurious accnsatioits preferred
agaiitst the whole SoiitJiern Presbyterian Church; and the
course pursued in regard to church property'' Under the
head of ** unjust and injurious accusations " it specified
" the charge that the Southern Assembly was organized in
the interest of and to subserve the ends of the Confederate
Government''; the charge ''that the Southern Assembly
had changed its grotmds on the subject of slavery so as
1 Compare " Minutes of 1874," pp. 497 ff.
2 " Minutes of 1875," p. 82. It may be doubted whether the sons of Jacob
had shown repentance if they had been as strong as Joseph when they dis-
covered him.
468 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
to hold opmions which were heretical and blasphemous "/
" the charge of schism which is made agaiftst the Southern
Church.'' ^ The committee refuted the charges by an appeal
to the records, and justified its church in her past course by
a reference to the acts of the Northern Church. It denied
that the '' Concurrent Declaration " ^ had removed the diffi-
culties mentioned. The declaration when made was made
without any reference to the Southern Assembly. If it
is any sort of retraction of the slander which the Southern
Church has suffered, it is not a square and open retrac-
tion. And since its passing the Assembly had persisted
in a course — the Walnut Street case — '* which by implica-
tion made many of the same charges over again."
Finally, the committee affirmed that the course pursued
in regard to church property by the Northern Assembly
was a serious obstacle. And the iniquitous methods of
settling disputes about church property, upon legal techni-
calities, the false and ridiculous principles adopted by the
Supreme Court of the United States in settling the Wal-
nut Street Church case — that of making the judgment of
an accidental majority of the highest church court of final
authority in interpreting the constitution of the church —
and the adoption of that decision of the Supreme Court
formally by the Assembly of 1872, were animadverted
upon and condemned. A proposal was made to settle
the property disputes by arbitration and upon moral rights
as a basis.
The Northern committee rejoined that in order to the
establishment of fraternal relations, the interchange of del-
egates, it was not necessary that all the doings of the cor-
responding bodies be approved. It overlooked the fact
that there were hindrances to even fraternal relations. It
claimed not to be negotiating with reference to organic
1 " Minutes of 1875," pp. 83-85. 2 See this in Note i, p. 465.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 469
union. It seemed to forget that organic union had from
the start been the ultimate aim. It asserted that if the
Northern Church had made dehverances unconstitutional
and inconsistent with the proper functions of ecclesiastical
assemblies, the Southern Assembly had committed the
same offense.^ It recited its Assembly's declaration to
Dr. J. H. Brooks and others of the Old School Synod in
Missouri in 1874, declaring everything done in the past
contrary to the " Confession of Faith, Catechism, Form of
Government, and Book of Discipline " to be null and void.2
It affirmed that by ** the concurrent resolutions " the charges
of " heresy and blasphemy " against the Southern brethren
had been declared " null and void, and therefore of no
binding effect and not to be pleaded as precedent in the
future " ; that the charges made had been made in peculiar
times, but were a part of history, and that it was idle to
talk of erasing them. It recounted the several overtures
for union, made in 1869, 1870, and 1873. Finally, it re-
affirmed its belief that there was no sufficient cause for
not establishing fraternal relations.
The Southern committee replied that there were hin-
drances in the way of official fraternal relations. It chal-
lenged a comparison of the records in disproof of the asser-
tion that the Southern Church had prostituted herself to
the state as the Northern Church had herself. It showed
the utter insufficiency of the Concurrent Declarations to
atone for the slander done the Southern Church. It de-
sired a plain and direct expression of regret on the part of
the Northern Church for these wrongs — wrongs such as
* For a sufficient refutation of this position, see the first section of this
chapter. The mistakes of the Southern Church in this respect were transient
lapses.
2 " Minutes of 1875," pp. 90-93. This declaration to Dr. Brooks is niere
farce. Who is the judge as to whether the Assembly has done anything un-
constitutional? The accidental majority of an Assembly!
470 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
no other evangelical church in modern times had dared
to heap on another.
The Northern committee was not disposed to ask its
Assembly to make this expression of regret. It expressed
the pious desire that the Southern Presbyterians might
look as leniently on the sins of the Northern Assembly as
the Northern Assembly would look on the proceedings of
the Southern Assembly.^
This virtually ended the conference. The action of the
Southern committee had been in all respects worthy. The
Northern Church went far in her apostasy, meddling with
the affairs of Caesar. She must repent of this apostasy
before she can be trusted. He who knows anything of
the power of habit over a church, as over an individual,
to make it tread down principle by moral inertia and under
external inducements, knows that for years to come, in
similar circumstances, the Northern Church would go to
equal lengths again, unless she repent most deeply. She
shows no repentance for what she did, she rather glories
in her political measures of the war time.
The Southern Assembly of 1875 approved the action of
its Baltimore committee, particularly of the statement of the
issue between the churches by the committee, and its demand
for a disapproval of the imputations cast upon the Southern
• Church by the Northern Assemblies from 1861 to 1867.
But the Assembly of 1876 at Savannah, in response to
an overture from the St. Louis Presbytery, in order to re-
move a misapprehension existing in the '' minds of some
of our people as to the spirit" of the action of the Balti-
more Conference, and '' in order to show our disposition to
remove on our part real or seeming hindrances to friendly
feeling," explicitly declared that '' while condemning cer-
tain acts and deliverances of the Northern General As-
1 " Minutes of 1875," pp. 96 ff.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 47 I
sembly, no acts or deliverances of the Southern General
Assembly are to be construed or admitted as impugning
in any way the Christian character of the Northern Gen-
eral Assembly, or of the historical bodies of which it is
successor."^
Subsequently the Savannah Assembly received a tele-
gram from the Northern Assembly, then in session at
Brooklyn, reiterating its belief that " no adjustment of
differences " can be " accomplished by the rehearsal of the
past," and reiterating '' its cordial desire to establish fra-
ternal relations " with the Southern Assembly, *' on terms
of perfect equality and reciprocity as soon " as it should
be *' agreeable to their brethren to respond to this assur-
ance by a similar expression."
The Southern Assembly, on receipt of this telegram,
replied that it was ** ready most cordially to enter on fra-
ternal relations with the Northern body on any terms hon-
orable to both parties."
In its reply the Southern Assembly recited also the ac-
tion which it had just taken in answer to the Presbytery
of St. Louis.2 On receiving the paper from the Savan-
nah Assembly, the Brooklyn Assembly turned parrot and
chattered forth :
The overture of this Assembly having been received by the General As-
sembly of the South with such a cordial expression of gratification, the com-
mittee recommended that the same resolution, declarative of the spirit in
which this action is taken, be adopted by this Assembly, viz. : " In order to
show our disposition to remove on our part all real or seeming hindrance to
friendly feeling, the Assembly explicitly declares that, while condemning
certain acts and deliverances of the Southern Assembly, no acts or deliver-
ances of the Northern Assembly, nor of the historical bodies of which the
present Assembly is the successor, are to be construed or admitted as im-
pugning in any way the Christian character of the Southern General Assem-
bly, or of the historical bodies of which it is the successor. "3
1 " Minutes of 1876," p. 242. 2 Ibid., p. 243.
3 " Minutes of 1877," pp. 412-413; Alexander's " Digest," p. 491.
472 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
The Southern Assembly of 1877, in reply to this from
the Northern Assembly, resolved :
That it could not regard this communication as satisfactory, because it
could discover in it no reference whatever to the first and main part of the
paper adopted by the Assembly at Savannah and communicated to the Brook-
lyn Assembly. It further said that it could add nothing on this subject to
the action of the Assembly of St. Louis adopting the basis proposed by our
Committee of Conference at Baltimore, and reaffirmed by the Assembly at
Savannah ; that if the brethren of the Northern Church could meet them on
these terms, which truth and righteousness seem to require, then they were
ready to establish such relations with them during the present sessions of the
Assemblies. 1^
Little more passed between the Assemblies until 1882.
In that year four overtures went up to the Southern
Assembly, having substantially the same object. They
requested the General Assembly *' to establish fully and
formally what are called fraternal relations " with the
Northern Assembly, '' by sending delegates forthwith to
that body," then in session at Springfield, 111. In response,
the Assembly adopted the following minute :
While receding from no principle, we hereby declare our regret for and
withdrawal of all expressions of our Assembly which may be regarded as
reflecting upon, or offensive to, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America. Resolved, That a copy of this
paper be sent by telegraph to the General Assembly now at Springfield, 111.,
for their prayerful consideration, and mutatis imitandis for their reciprocal
concurrence, as affording a basis for the exchange of delegates forthwith. 2
In reply the Springfield Assembly telegraphed to the
Atlanta Assembly that the message from the Southern
Assembly had been received with warm enthusiasm ; and
that, in order to remove all difficulties in the way of that
full and formal fraternal correspondence between the two
Assemblies, which it, on its part, was prepared to accept,
it had adopted the following : ** While receding from no
1 " Minutes of 1877," pp. 412, 413; Alexander's " Digest," p. 491.
2 " Minutes of 1882," p. 530.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH, 473
principle, etc." ^ That is, the Northern Assembly made
its bow to the Southern with its suggested little speech of
regret for whatever in its past acts might be considered
as reflecting on the Southern brethren. This ** Tweedle
to me and I tweedle to you," tit-for-tat passage between
the Assemblies has nothing massive or grand or beautiful
in it. In attempting to extort this quasi- apology the
Southern Assembly stultified herself. She had committed
no act for which she needed apologize to the Northern
Church. She seemed to apologize. At this time she low-
ered her banner. She merged her witness for the truth
— forsaking the nobler course under the whips of some
goody-goody scolds. And the great Presbyterian Church,
North, wears no aspect of dignity in saying its little speech.
If it believed it had done no wrong, it should have acted
differently ; it should not have said its suggested speech.
If it was conscious of wrong, it should have made a noble
apology. Its acts concerning loyalty and rebellion, its
slanderous accusations against Southern brethren, were
grounds for just indignation, and should have been with-
drawn as St. Paul would know how to retract if he were
made conscious of fault.
But the moderator of the Springfield Assembly tele-
graphed to the moderator of the Atlanta Assembly that
in the action just taken the Northern Assembly disclaimed
'' any reference to the actions of preceding Assemblies
concerning loyalty and rebellion," but referred *' only to
those concerning schism, heresy, and blasphemy."
This troubled the Southern Assembly ; but on inquiry
it was informed that the action mentioned in the moder-
ator's unofficial telegram did ''not modify but explai7ted
the concurrent resolutions " just passed, and that the ex-
planation was on its face.^
1 " Minutes of 1882," p. 541. 2 /^/^.^ p. 552.
474 ^^^ SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
The Northern Church gloried too much in her political
measures of 1861 and 1867 to retract them.
The Southern Assembly expressed its satisfaction, and
decided to send delegates to the next Assembly North.
The church was not so well satisfied. There was resiling
in 1882-83.
In 1883 committees of conference on cooperation, at
the suggestion of the Northern Assembly, were appointed
by the Assemblies to confer ** in regard to plans looking
to more successful conduct of the work of the church in
such regions and concerning such interests as are more or
less common to the two churches." As a result of their
conference the committees recommended to their Assem-
blies the joint occupancy of Danville Seminary, a plan of
cooperation in home missions, and comity in matters of
discipline such as would forbid the Northern Church
throwing open its doors to those under discipline in the
Southern Church, or vice versa. The recommendations
of the committees were rejected, save the last, relating to
discipline, which the Assembly adopted. ^
But in 1887 the Northern General Assembly was sup-
posed, in some quarters, to have indorsed somewhat more
fully the tenets of the spirituality of the church; and in
response to several overtures touching organic union, the
Assembly, South, appointed a committee to meet with a
similar committee of the Northern Church '* for the sole
purpose of inquiring into and ascertaining the facts as to
the point above mentioned, and as to the position that
Assembly proposes to maintain as to colored churches,
ecclesiastical boards, and any other subjects now regarded
as obstacles in the way of united effort for the propagation
of the gospel, and report these facts to the next Assembly
for such action as they may warrant." ^
1 " Minutes of 1884," p. 19; Alexander's " Digest," p. 504.
2 " Minutes of 1887," p. 222.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 475
These committees met, in December, 1887, in joint con-
ference in Louisville. The Southern committee sought
information from the Northern on four subjects, viz.: i.
On the doctrine of the Northern Church as to the spiritual-
ity of the church — whether the deliverance of the last
Northern Assembly is to be interpreted in the light of past
political deliverances, which it apparently contravenes, or
whether the Northern Church, " as now constituted, holds
on this subject views different from those entertained by
the two Assemblies to which that church has succeeded."
2. On the principles and policy which would be recognized
as vital by the Northern Assembly in the settlement of the
relation of the colored people in the South to the church,
in case of union. 3. On the subject of *' the powers and
responsibilities of ecclesiastical boards " of the Northern
Church, and the extent to which these boards are under
the control of the General Assembly. 4. On the attitude
of opinions within the bounds of the Northern Assembly
" touching those portions of the Confession of Faith which
more specifically involve the great system of truth known
as Calvinistic, and particularly whether there is traceable
any distinct tincture of such Pelagian and semi-Pelagian
heresies as were matter for controversy in 1837." ^
The Northern committee met again in Baltimore in Jan-
uary, 1888, and repHed to these questions.^
The Southern Assembly of 1888 was *' unable to dis-
cover in these replies that the obstacles to organic union "
theretofore '* existing between the Northern and Southern
General Assemblies " had ** to any considerable extent
been removed." Hence, it continued ** established in the
conviction that the cause of truth and righteousness, as
well as the peace and prosperity of our beloved Zion,"
would be ** best promoted by remaining ... a distinct
1 " Minutes of 1888," pp. 458, 459.
2 For answers, see '* Minutes of 1888," pp. 460-462.
476 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS, [Chap. v.
member of that one body, the church, of which the Lord
Jesus Christ is the supreme and everlasting head."
This conclusion was a wise and righteous one. A few
months was sufficient to show that the Northern com-
mittee, if sincere in furnishing information on the fourth
subject of inquiry, was wofully mistaken. The cry of Re-
vision of the Confession rose in such volume and with such
strident and piercing tones, that the deaf had to hear and
comprehend that Pelagianism was abroad. The Northern
Church was seen to have many gangrened members. Her
fifteen hundred ministers from extra-Presbyterian sources
and her long-comatose New Schoolism showed themselves.
Though the boards of the Northern Church have indeed
been so changed that they differ practically little from our
committees, it would be a retrograde movement to go from
our committees back to boards ; our organization proclaims
the sufficiency of the church for its appointed work and its
unity. But the attitudes toward the negro differ essen-
tially, and would inevitably fill the *' united church " with
strife. Northern Pharisees would dictate terms of inter-
course between the Christians of the two races. South,
which would lead to race amalgamation if followed out.
Moreover, the two churches do not stand together, as
the blindest can see, on the non-secular character of the
church. They cannot stand together in that witness soon.
The past of the Northern Church is too potent on her pres-
ent and her future. She has had a political past. She
glories in it. She has traditions from the past which she
loves, and they keep the spirit alive. Given a similar set
of circumstances, and the Northern Church of to-morrow
would do just as bad or worse than the two Assemblies,
New and Old School, North, did in 1861-65. What if
she makes deliverances on the spirituaHty of the church,
and points to passages in her confession which set forth
CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESBYTERIANS, NORTH. 477
that doctrine plainly! Besides, there is a fundamental
difference in the view taken of the moral nature of the
relation of slavery by the Southern Church and that taken
by the New School wing of the Northern Church. This
involves a wide difference in the estimate of the Bible
as God's book. The Southern Church holds the bibhcal
view, and maintains that it is right. The churches differ
also on the true nature of the ruling elder's office, on the
nature of Romish baptism, on the relation of woman to
the pubHc work of the church, etc. But while refusing
organic union, in 1888 the Assembly appointed a Com-
mittee of Conference with a similar committee from the
Northern Assembly to confer on such modes of fraternal
cooperation " in Christian work, both at home and abroad,
as might be considered practicable and edifying," the said
committee to report to the next Assembly.
The joint committee met in New York in 1888, and in
Atlanta in 1889. They reached agreement on four points,
and were able to report a plan of cooperation which, with
the exceptions that it contained no plank concerning co-
operation in education and contained a provision for the
union of weak contiguous congregations under a common
pastor from either church — like the Plan of Union with
the Congregationalists of 1801 — was the close analogue
of the plan of cooperation with the Dutch Reformed
Church.^
Their report was adopted entire by the Assembly of
1889. The results so far have not been great. The co-
operation in the foreign field is practicable. The ques-
tions which disturb and divide here are not so prominently
before the missionaries and their converts. The coopera-
1 The plank about the evangelization of the colored people was to this
effect : Each church will help the other along the lines of its own preferred
method of working.
478 THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. [Chap. v.
tion in the home field is possible only within narrow limits.
The cooperation in the colored evangelization has not been
largely illustrated. Neither church is satisfied with the
position of the other. Cooperation in publication under
the limits indicated above is useful.
The revision movement and the controversies with the
rationalistic higher critics have blown a cold breath on the
movement of the churches toward each other since 1889.
The churches between which and the Southern Presby-
terian Church there subsist terms of most intimate corre-
spondence to-day are the Dutch Reformed Church and the
Presbyterian Church, North. Formally, the relation sub-
sisting between the Dutch Reformed Church and the
Presbyterian Church, South, is almost precisely that ex-
isting between our church and the Presbyterian Church,
North. There is a difference in the cordiality. In the
former case the relation sprang spontaneously from both
churches. There has been no hesitancy. In the latter case
the relation is half-hearted on the part of both churches.
4. Thus we have passed over the history of this church :
her origin, her growth in numbers and wealth, her growth
in the comprehension of the Scriptural doctrine and polity,
her relation to other churches throughout the earth. It
has been shown that there was good reason for her com-
ing into being as a separate church, for her continuing to
exist as a separate church till to-day. God has put high
honors on her in the past, making her a witness for the
non-secular character of the church, and for a Bible Cal-
vinism, and for a Bible that makes God teach and indorse
good ethics, for the government of the church according
to her divine constitution, for the highest form of church
organization in the Presbyterian body, perhaps. She may
never merge her witness for these truths by an adulterous
connection with any church that will not and cannot bear
THE CONCLUSION. 479
a true witness for them, but to her eternal shame. May
the God who raised up a Thornwell to lead this church in
her infant days, and a McPheeters to suffer for two of her
Synods and for Christians everywhere, who has given a
Dabney and a Peck, an H. M. Smith and a B. M. Palmer
to minister to her people hitherto, raise up spiritual sons
worthy of such fathers to lead the church until another
body who has the same witness to make, or can teach us
a truer one, shall admit us to union with them.
No church has a right to an independent existence
which has not a truth or group of truths to witness for
which other churches in the country do not witness for.
The church that has such a witness to make should main-
tain a separate existence. We believe in union, but in
union with those who hold God's essential truths fully as
we see them.
INDICES
METHODISTS, SOUTH.
Amusements, worldly, 94.
Andrew, Bishop, case of, 18; char-
acter of, 19; resignation of, 21;
death of, 96.
"Appeal" of New England Confer-
ences, 10.
"Army Church," 74.
Atlanta, General Conference at, loi.
Bascom, elected bishop, 60 ; sketch of,
60, 61.
Bishops, Northern, action of 1845, 52.
Bledsoe, Dr. A. T., 93.
Book Concern, 46.
Brazil Mission, 124.
British Conference, address of, 10 1 ;
fraternal delegate from, 113.
California, 58.
Canada, case of, 36.
Cape May Commission, 98-100.
Capers, Wm., delegate to England,
9 ; elected bishop, 47 ; superintend-
ent of slave missions, 116; death
of, 64.
Centenary celebration, 107.
Central University, 68.
China, mission to, 57, 58, 120.
Church Extension, 106.
Class-meeting, the, 81.
Colored M. E. Church, 91, 92.
Colored people, 86.
Columbus, Ga., General Conference
at, 62.
Commissioners on property question,
48, 54, 59-
Congregationalism, 139.
Constitution, 89.
Convention, the Louisville, 40, 41.
"Counter- Appeal," 10.
"Declaration "of Southern delegates,
29.
Delegates, principal, in 1844, 15.
Discipline unchanged, 48.
Divorce, iii.
Doggett, D. S., editor "Quarterly
Review," 60; elected bishop, 82;
sketch of, 84; death of, 104.
Duncan, W. W., elected bishop, no.
Early, John, bishop, 64 ; death of, 96.
Ecumenical Conference, 107.
Education, 70, 86, 134-136.
Elliott, Dr. Chas., 29, 32.
Emory, John, delegate to England, 36.
Ep worth League, 112.
Finley-Trimble resolution, 23.
First General Conference, 44 ff*
Fisk, Gen. Clinton B., 99.
Fitzgerald, O. P., 103, 113.
Foss, C. D., fraternal delegate, 100.
Fowler, Dr., fraternal delegate, 98.
Fraternity, federation, etc., 141.
Galloway, C. B., fraternal address,
S3; elected bishop, no.
General Conference, powers of, 35-
37» 89, 90.
Georgia resisted slavery, 4.
German missions, 127.
Glenn, James E. , missionary to slaves,
115-
Granbery, J. C, elected bishop, 106.
Harding, case of, in 1844, 15, 16.
Hargrove, R. K., elected bishop, 106.
Hay good, A. G., elected bishop, 106,
113-
Hedding, Bishop, in General Confer-
ence of 1844, 24.
Homogeneity of Southern Methodism,
138, 139-
Honour, Rev. John, 116.
Indians, 58, 126, 127.
Japan, mission to, 125, 126.
INDICES.
John, Dr. I. G., missionary secretary,
1 20.
Kavanaugh, H. H., elected bishop,
64; sketch of, and death, 108.
Keener, John C, elected bishop, 93.
Key, Jos. S., elected bishop, no.
Lawsuits, 56, 59.
Lay delegation, 82, 88.
Louisville Convention, 40, 41.
Louisville, General Conference at,
in 1874, 97.
Marvin, E. M., as chaplain, 74 ; elected
bishop, 82 ; sketch of, 83.
Massey, Rev. John H., 116.
McFerrin, J. B., Book Agent, 67; as
army chaplain, 71-73; as Book
Agent, 102; death of, 113.
McKendree, Bishop, 36, 67, 89.
McTyeire, H. N., editor "Advocate,"
68 ; elected bishop, 82 ; sketch of,
84; death of, 113.
Memphis, General Conference at, 88 ff.
Merrill, Bishop, quoted, 134, 138,
141.
Mexican missions, 123, 124.
Missionary Society, 85, 92, 112.
Missionary Society, Woman's, 127-
129.
Missions, 114 flf.
Moore, Rev. G. W., 115.
Morton, David, 106.
Negroes, missions to, 114, 119.
Newman, John P., commissioner, 99.
New Orleans, General Conference at,
79 ff.
New York East Conference, 80.
Olin, Stephen, 17, 52, 115.
Organic Union, 141.
Organization of M. E. Church, South,
38 ff.
Paine, Robert, elected bishop, 47 ;
"Life of McKendree," 67; death
of, 104.
Parker, Linus, elected bishop, 106;
death of, 109.
Parsonage and Home Mission Society,
130.
Pastoral term extended, 81.
Patterson, W. M., in Mexico, 123.
Perfect love, bishops on, 94.
Petersburg, Va., first General Con-
ference at, 43.
Pierce, George F., elected bishop, 64;
death and sketch of, 108, 109.
Pierce, Lovick, 26, 49, 54.
Pittsburg, General Conference of M. E.
Church at, 54.
Plan of Separation, 30-32.
Politics, 138.
Probation removed, 81.
Prohibition, no, 1 12.
"Protest " of the Southern delegates,
27, 28.
Publishing-house, 63, loi, 136.
Redford, A. H., Book Agent, 85.
Restrictive Rule, change of, 53.
Ridgaway, H. B., fraternal delegate,
107.
Sanctification, the bishops on, 94.
Scarritt Bible and Training School,
131-
Separation, Plan of, 30-32.
Slavery in the colonies, 4; first legis-
lation on, 6 ; history of legislation
on, 6-14; Southern delegates on,
34; rule on, expunged, 66.
Slaves, missions to, 58, 65, 114.
Slicer-Sargent resolution, 26.
Snethen, 7.
Soule, Bishop, at Louisville Conven-
tion, 41, 42; at first General Con-
ference, 44, 45 ; death of, 87.
St. Louis, 50, 57, 112.
Statistics for 1846, 49; 1850, 1854,
62; 1858, 68; i860, 69; 1866, 79;
1874, 96; 1878, 103; 1886, hi;
1891-92, 133.
Summers, Thos. O., 105.
Temperance, 110-112.
Theological schools, 136.
Tigert quoted, 36, 37, 84.
Vanderbilt University, 103, 135.
Veto of bishops, 90.
Virginia, slavery in colony of, 4.
War, the church during the, 69-78.
W^esleyan Church organized, 13.
Whitefield on slavery, 4.
Wightman,W. M., elected bishop, 82 ;
death of, 104.
Wilson, A. W., missionary secretary,
103 ; elected bishop, 106.
Woman's societies, 1 27-131.
Worldly amusements, 94.
Young, Dr. R. A., 68, 92.
INDICES.
483
UNITED PRESBYTERIANS.
Associate Church in Scotland :
grounds of secession, 158; the
Marrow controversy, 159; E. Ers-
kine's sermon and rebuke by Synod,
160; action of the Commission, 161 ;
the secession, 162 ; Extra-judicial
Testimony, 162 ; overtures of con-
ciliation, 162 ; progress of the se-
cession, 163 ; organization of a Syn-
od, 163; division into Burgher and
Anti-Burgher, 164.
Associate Church in America : petition
from Chester, 60, 165 ; first minis-
ters, 165 ; organize a Presbytery,
165 ; controversy with New Castle
Presbytery, 165 ; more arrivals,
166; Dr. Clarke joins, 166; other
Burgher ministers, 168; Anti-
Burgher commission, 169; union
with Covenanters, 172; protest of
the minority, 174; their Narrative
and Testimony, 174 ; acts anent cov-
enanting, 175, 177; Presbytery of
Kentucky, 1 76 ; organization of a
Synod, 1 76 ; correspondence with
original seceders, 179; statistics,
183.
Associate Reformed Church : its ori-
gin, 184; its Synod, 184; Little
Constitution, 185 ; had no Narrative,
187; no Judicial Testimony, 188,
190; no covenant bond, 189; civil
magistrate circa sacra, 192 ; its
Standards, 192 ; effort to unite with
the Reformed Dutch, 194; a Gen-
eral Synod, 194, 199 ; sacramental
communion, 194; the Dr. Mason
trouble, 196; union with General
Assembly, 200 ; transfer of library,
201 ; its restoration, 209.
Associate Reformed New York Syn-
od : no meetings, 203 ; opposes
union, 204 ; becomes independent,
204 ; efforts toward a reunion, 204.
Associate Reformed Synod of the
Carolinas : dismissed, 200.
Associate Reformed Synod of the
West: why it seceded, 214; forms
a General Synod, 223.
Baptism : by Arians, 234 ; by Roman-
ists, 234.
Boards of the church : home mis-
sions, 245 ; church extension, 245 ;
mission to the freedmen, 245 ; for-
eign missions, 247 ; education, 249 ;
ministerial relief, 249 ; publication,
249.
Book of Discipline, 179.
Bullions' secession, 180.
Church voters, 224.
Classical schools, 216.
Communion: Associate, 175; Associ-
ate Reformed, 195 ; Synod of New
York, 210; General Assembly,
234; a distinctive, 254.
Cuthbertson, John, in Ireland, 150,
151; in America, 151; his first
communion, 152; his labors, 153;
ordains elders, 154; subsequent
communions, 154.
Deacons, 217.
Diagram of the dissenting churches
of Scotland, 146.
Education, 240 ; academies, 241 ;
colleges, 241.
Female missionary societies, 238.
Foreign Missions : Associate, 182 ;
New York, 209 ; West, 222.
Home Missions : New York, 205 ;
West, 221.
Instrumental music, 238.
Interim meetings, 176.
Londonderry Presbytery, 193.
Occasional testimonies, 222.
Psalms: Scotch version, 183; efforts
to improve, 183, 198, 236; Psalter,
237; " Bible Songs," 237.
Reformed Dissenting Presbytery, 181.
Reformed Presbyterian Church : its
origin, 146; plan of correspondence,
147; Shields, Boyd, Lining, 149;
McMillan and Nairne organize a
Presbytery, 150; refugees to Ire-
land, 150; to America, 150; their
first covenanting, 151; Lind and
Dobbin, 155; organize a Presby-
tery, 155 ; their fields of labor, 155 ;
views of civil government, 156;
484
INDICES.
union with seceders, 156; reorgani-
zation, 156.
Renwick, James, 148; last martyr,
149.
Sanquhar protests, 147, 149.
Secret societies : Associate, 182 ; New
York, 205 ; West, 219; U. P., 254.
Slavery: Associate, 177; Kendall
mobbed, 179; New York, 210;
West, 217.
Temperance : Associate, 181 ; New
York, 206; West, 220; U. P., 235.
Theological education, 242.
Theological seminaries : Dutch Re-
formed, 242; Associate, 176; at
Service, 242; at New York, 243;
at Newburg, 208 ; at Pittsburg, 215 ;
at Oxford, 216.
Unions : Reformed and Associate,
172 ; New York and West, 212 ; of
1858, its history, 225 ; its basis, 228 ;
conferences for prayer, 231 ; final
action, 232 ; consummation, 232.
United Presbyterian Church : the re-
sult of unions, 145 ; the representa-
tive of Scotch dissenters, 145 ; or-
ganized, 233 ; territory and growth,
250; its denominational attitude,
251; loyalty to Jesus, 252; to the
Word of God, 253; fundamental
doctrines, 254.
Young Men's Fund, 216.
CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS.
Abel, Mr., 277.
African Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, 300.
Alexander, Dr. A., 263.
Armstrong, J. C, 296.
Bacon, Sumner, 291.
Baxter, Dr. George, 263.
Beard, Richard, 290, 293, 297.
Beck, Mr., 276.
Bell, Dr. Robert, 295.
Bethel College, 298.
Bird, Milton, 299.
Bloodworth, Mr., 277.
Board of Church Erection, 296.
Board of Education, 298.
Board of Missions, 296.
Bone, M. H., 291.
Brainerd, David, 295.
Calhoun, Thomas, 288, 290.
Circular Letter, 272.
Cossett, Franceway R., 297.
Cumberland College, 297.
"Cumberland Presbyterian, the,"
299.
Cumberland Synod, 287.
Cumberland University, 297.
Davidson, Dr., 266.
Delegation from Muhlenburg and
West Tennessee, 286.
Doctrinal Specifications, 304.
Donald, Thomas, 281.
Donnell, Robert, 288.
Elliot, John, 295.
Ewing, Finis, 259, 268, 288.
First eighteen Presbyteries, 288.
Gallagher, James, 265.
Gordon, M. L., 296.
Grider, Dr. J. S., 298.
Hodge, Samuel, 268, 281.
Hodge, William, 268.
Japan, missions in, 293.
Kemper, Mr., 277.
Kentucky Synod, 264, 266.
King, Samuel, 259, 268, 282.
Lincoln University, 297.
Lindsley, Dr. J. B., 286.
Lyle, John, 266.
Marquis, Mr., 277.
McAdow, Samuel, 259, 268, 282, 285.
McDonnold, Dr., 301.
McGee, William, 268, 288.
McGready, James, 260, 261, 268,
272.
McLean, Ephraim, 270.
McMillan, John, 261.
Mexico, missions in, 293.
Missouri Valley College, 297.
i Moore, Mr., 277.
INDICES.
485
Name, the, 259.
Nashville Presbytery, 287.
Nelson, David, 262.
Ogden, John W., 290.
Relation to the negroes, 300.
" Religious and Literary Intelli-
gencer," 299.
Revised Confession of Faith, 306.
Revival of 1800, 260.
" Revivalist, the," 299.
Rice, David, 261, 264, 273.
Sabbath, the, 271.
Sources and sketches of Cumberland
Presbyterian history, 286.
Testimony concerning the Revival of
1800, 262.
" Theological Medium," 299.
Transylvania Presbytery, 265, 275.
Trinity University, 297.
Turkey, missions in, 296.
Waynesburg College, 297.
Wilson, J. P., 267.
Women's Board of Foreign Missions,
296.
SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIANS.
Abingdon, 320.
" Address to all the Churches of Jesus
Christ," 348, 426, 434.
Adger, Dr. John B., 355.
Africa, missions in, 369.
Alabama Presbytery of the Associate
Reformed Church, 359, 439.
Amendments of the constitution, 411.
Anderson, Dr. William C, 327.
Arkansas College, 402.
Armstrong, J. D., 355.
Assembly of 1861, 325.
Assembly of 1865, 423.
Assembly of 1866, 424.
Assembly of 187 1, 384.
Assembly of 1874, 381.
Associate Reformed Presbytery of
Kentucky, 359, 452.
Atlanta Convention, 334.
Augusta Assembly, 336.
Austin College, 402.
Austin School of Theology, 396.
Backus, Dr. John T., 330.
Bamett, Dr., 406.
Baxter, Dr. George A., 394.
Bocock, Dr. John H., 355.
Brazil, missions in, 369.
Breckenridge, Dr. R. J., 323, 440.
Brooks, Dr. J. H., 469.
Brown, John, 397.
Cape Fear River, 318.
Center College, 322.
" Central Presbyterian, the," 406.
Central University, 400,
Chaplains for the armies of the Con-
federacy, 384.
Charter of the Assembly, 346, 407.
" Children's Friend," 404.
China, Colombia, Congo, Corea, Cuba,
missions in, 369.
" Christian Observer, the," 406.
Colored Evangelical Fund, 378.
Colored Presbyterian Church, 381.
Columbia Seminary, 322, 394.
Committee of Conference on Coopera-
tion, 474.
Committee of Publication, 345.
Committee of Sustentation, 374.
Committee on Foreign Correspond-
ence, 424.
Constitution, 410.
Correspondence, fraternal, 455.
Correspondence with the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of
America, 458.
Cotton, John, 319.
Craig, J. N., 386.
Dabney, Dr. R. L., 322, 394, 396,
404, 412, 418.
Danville Seminary, 322.
Davidson College, 399.
" Declaration and Testimony" of
Louisville Presbytery, 443.
Divinity School of the Southwestern
Presbyterian University, 396.
Doctrine, 410.
Doughty, Francis, 319.
Dutch Presbyterians, 318.
486
INDICES.
*' Earnest Worker," 405.
Education, 387.
English Presbyterians, 317.
Evangelical work, 376.
Executive Committee for the Educa-
tion of Colored Ministers, 395.
Executive Committee of Education,
387.
Executive Committee of Foreign Mis-
sions, 363, 365.
Executive Committee of Home Mis-
sions, 377.
First General Assembly of the Pres-
byterian Church, South, 336.
Foote, Dr. Wm. H., 355.
Foreign missions, 339, 362.
Funds, the five, 384.
General Synod of the Reformed
Church in America, 457.
German Presbyterians, 318.
Girardeau, Dr., 456, 461.
Gordon, Dr. E. C., 402.
Goulding, Dr. Thomas, 394.
Gray, Dr., 335.
Gurley Order, the, 448.
Hampden Sidney College, 321, 322,
398.
Hill, Matthew, 319.
Hodge, Dr. Charles, 327.
Hoge, Dr. Moses, 323, 398, 456.
" Home Missionary, the," 407.
Home missions, 343, 372.
Houston, Dr. M. H., 366, 369.
Howe, Dr. George, 394.
Huguenots, 318.
Independent Presbyterian Church,
358, 435.
Invalid Fund, the, 375.
Jacobs, Dr. W. P., 403.
Japan, missions in, 369.
Jones, Dr. C. C, 355.
Jones, Dr. Joseph H., 335.
Kerr, Dr. R. P., 416.
King College, 402.
Lacy, Dr. Irving, 355.
Leland, Dr. A. W., 394.
" Lesson Helps," 405.
" Lesson Quarterlies," 405.
" Letter to all the Churches of Jesus
Christ," 348.
Leybum, John, 386.
Liberty Hall, 321, 397.
Long, Dr. Isaac J., 396, 402.
Louisville Presbyterian Theological
Seminary, 396.
Luckett, Dr. S. M., 402.
Lyon, Dr. James A., 355.
Makemie, Francis, 319.
Marquess, Dr. W. H., 402.
Marysville College, 322.
McFarland, Dr. Francis, 336, 355.
Mcllwaine, Dr. R., 366, 386, 399.
Mecklenburg Declaration, 320.
" Missionary, the," 407.
Missions, foreign, 339, 362.
Missions, home, 343, 372.
Missions in Indian Territory, 341,
369.
Mitchell, W. L., 355.
Mode of electing committees, 345.
Moore, Dr. W. W., 394.
Moral hope of the church, 417.
Morrison, Dr. H., 355.
" North Carolina Presbyterian, the,'*
406.
Palmer, Dr. B. M., 323, 335, 336, 413,
420, 456.
Pastoral Letter by the Assembly of
1865, 423.
Peck, Dr. T. E., 322, 394, 413, 416.
Perrin, T. C, 355.
Phillips, A. L., 395.
Phillips, Charles, 355.
Polity, 412.
" Presbyterian Church in the Con-
federate States of America," 335.
" Presbyterian Quarterly, the," 406.
Presbytery of Central Texas, 396.
Presbytery of East Alabama, 333.
Presbytery of Hanover, 320, 321, 397.
Presbytery of Lexington, 387.
Presbytery of Louisville, 443.
Presbytery of Mississippi, 379.
Presbytery of New Orleans, :^t,$.
Presbytery of Patapsco, 358, 438.
Preston, Col. J. T. L., 415.
Pryor, Dr. Theodoric, 355.
Publication, 404.
Queen's Museum, 321.
Ramsay, Dr. James B., 355.
Relation of the church to other bodies,
422.
Relations with the state, 423.
Report of the Committee of Ten, 449.
INDICES.
487
Report of the Committee on Foreign
Correspondence, 424.
Report on theological seminaries,
427-
Revision of Book of Discipline, 413.
Revision of the Directory of Worship,
415-
Revision of the Hymn-book, 416.
Rice, Dr. John Holt, 321.
Robinson, Dr. Stuart, 456.
Ronzone, Miss, 456.
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, 318.
Scotch Presbyterians, 318.
Sheppard, J. G., 355.
Slavery, relation to, 426, 431, 434.
Smith, Dr. B. M., 394.
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 398.
Social life of the church, 418.
" Soldier's Visitor, the," 404.
South Carolina College, 402.
Southern Aid Society of New York,
386.
" Southern Presbyterian, the," 406.
*' Southwestern Presbyterian, the,"
406.
Southwestern Presbyterian Univer-
sity, 399.
Spring, Dr., 326.
*' St. Louis Presbyterian, the," 406.
*' Stanley- Matthews Paper," 441.
Stillman, Dr. C. A., 395.
Stobo, Archibald, 319.
Strickler, Dr., 406.
Swayne, J. T., 355.
Swiss Presbyterians, 318, 393.
Synod of Kentucky, 359, 396, 439.
Synod of Missouri, 359, 396, 452.
Synod of Virginia, 379.
Temperance, 420.
Thornwell, Dr. James, 322, 334, 338,
395, 404, 412, 414.
Thornwell Orphanage, 403.
Trail, William, 319.
Turner, Dr. McNeil, 355.
Tuscaloosa Institute, 395.
Union Seminary, 321, 322, 393.
" Union Seminary Magazine," 406.
Union with the Alabama Presbytery,
439-
Union with the Associate Reformed
Presbytery of Kentucky, 452.
Union with the Independent Presby-
terian Church, 435.
Union with the Presbytery of Pa-
tapsco, 438.
Union with the Synod of Kentucky,
439-
Union with the Synod of Missouri,
452.
Union with the United Synod of the
South, 436.
United Synod of the South, 358, 436.
Voluntary agencies, 408.
Waddel, Dr. John N., 335, 355.
Washington and Lee University, 397.
Washington College, 321, 322.
Webb, W. P., 355.
Westminster College, 401.
Whitaker, Alexander, 318.
Wilson, Dr. J. Leighton, 341, 355,
366, 374, 386.
Wilson, Dr. Joseph R., 355, 388,
396.
Worship, 415.
Yeomans, Dr. John W,, 330.
Y. M. C. A., 456.
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