The Presbyterians

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BX 8935 .T56 1903
Thompson, Charles Lemuel

1839-1924.
The Presbyterians

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THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BUILDING,
JAMAICA, L. I.

'The Story of the Churches

The Presbyterians

By

CHARLES LEMUEL THOMPSON, D. D.

Secretary of the Board of Hotne Missions of the Presby-
terian Church in the U. S. A,

'"«>,

NEW YORK: THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.
33-37 East Seventeenth St., Union Sq. North

Copyright, 1903,

By

The Baker & Taylor Co.

Published^ February ^ igoj

Preface

There are many histories of the Presby-
terian Church in this country. It has, how-
ever, been thought that there was still room
for one which should put the story into a few
brief chapters presenting only the main out-
line of events and giving them a popular
rather than an ecclesiastical setting. Neither
the limitations of space nor the purpose of
the writer has allowed discussions of polity
or doctrine.

This is therefore a record of the life and
work of the Church given in its most essen-
tial features. As such it is commended to
those of any communion who would know
what share Presbyterians have had in the
progress of Christianity in our country.

Publishers' Note

The aim of this series is to furnish a uniform
set of church histories, brief but complete,
and designed to instruct the average church
member in the origin, development, and his-
tory of the various denominations. Many
church histories have been issued for all de-
nominations, but they have usually been
volumes of such size as to discourage any
but students of church history. Each vol-
ume of this series, all of which will be
written by leading historians of the various
denominations, will not only interest the
members of the denomination about which
it is written, but will prove interesting to
members of other denominations as well
who wish to learn something of their fellow
workers. The volumes will be bound uni-
formly, and when the series is complete will
make a most valuable history of the Chris-
tian church.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Presbyterian Origins 9

II. Laying Foundations 34

III. Opening of a New Century 48

IV. The Division of 1741 60

V. Missionaries and Patriots 81

VI. Over the Mountains 104

VII. An Era of Missions 119

VIII. The Old North West 151

IX. The Division of 1837 173

X. The Civil War and its Results . . . .198

XI. Reunion 212

XII. Heresy Trials 227

XIII. Confessional Changes 238

XIV. The Presbyterian Church To-day . . 262

The Presbyterians

CHAPTER I

PRESBYTERIAN ORIGINS

The story of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America requires that
there should be some definition of Pres-
byterianism and some word of its history in
the old world that prepared for its coming
to the new. As a form of doctrine and
worship Presbyterianism is to be traced to
the personality and the teachings of John
Calvin. As to its essential principles, how-
ever, it may be traced to Christ and his
apostles. It aims to recover and apply the
principles of Christian life announced by
Christ and the doctrines formulated by his
9

lo The Presbyterians

apostles. An attempt has sometimes been
made to trace a continuous line of Presby-
terian history from the apostolic period to
the organization of the Church in the time
of the Swiss Reformation. Such an at-
tempt, like that of tracing an unbroken
apostolic succession, is accompanied with
great difficulties. It is not necessary. Un-
doubtedly there were among the Walden-
sians and others those who before the Ref-
ormation were endeavoring to keep alive
the fires of Christian life on obscure altars
in the valleys of Italy and among the Alps.
God has never left himself without the seed
of a true Israel in the earthN But Presby-
terianism as an organized form of church
life is to date from the time of the Reforma-
tion.

What now are the historic lines by which
it came to this country ? What principles
characteristically Presbyterian can we trace
in our national beginnings ? Every nation
has its own personality. That personality

Presbyterian Origins ii

is the outcome of certain ruling ideas. Our
country is peculiar in tracing its origin not
to any one people of Europe. The line of its
history is not, therefore, a single line, and
is not to be traced as you might trace the
strong current of a river. It is the resultant
of the combined life of half a dozen Euro-
pean nations. The problem, therefore, of
finding out what are the ruling principles
that have entered into the formation of this
republic is not a simple but a complex one.
At the same time the facts stand out so
clearly in our own history and are so dis-
tinctly marked as that history is traced back
to the lands whence it came, that it is not
difficult to mark the national characteristics
across the ocean that have determined this
last born of great nations.

In a general way, historians are in the
habit of saying that the chief factors of
national life have come to us from England,
Scotland, France, Ireland and Holland. As
the fingers come to the wrist, these nations

12 The Presbyterians

have come to a certain solidarity in our own
country. It is necessary, therefore, to in-
quire what are the essential truth elements
of these respective nations. Of what ideas
of truth, tolerance, education and liberty
were they respectively the exponents when
the great Reformation that quickened all
Europe from the Orkneys to the Tiber
had done its work, and the historian had
had time to look about over the countries
which it had influenced ? Certain leading
truths so developed and new to the world
are called Reformation Truths. Some of
them had existed ages before, were an in-
heritance from Roman law and primitive
Christianity, but had been swept away or
covered up by the general flood of igno-
rance and oppression. Now with the lustre
of new ideas, fresh born from heaven, they
emerged to gladden the world. Following
these ideas in their historic development
one can follow the doctrines of personal
liberty, rights of conscience, human brother-

Presbyterian Origins 13

hood, and free government, springing up
in Scotland and Holland and France almost
simultaneously, toward one sourceful foun-
tain; for it requires no profound or pro-
longed study of historic tendencies to dis-
cover that emigrants from Scotland, and
the Netherlands, and England, and France,
drank their first drafts of intellectual and
spiritual liberty in the new-born republic
of the city of Geneva.

Greene, in his history of the English peo-
ple, recognizes truly the genesis of the new
life of Europe, and of the Reformation
when he says, ** As a vast and consecrated
democracy it stood in contrast with the
whole social and political framework of the
European nations. Grave as we may count
the faults of Calvinism, alien as its temper
may be in many ways from the temper of
the modern world, it is in Calvinism that
the modern world strikes its roots, for it was
Calvinism that first revealed the worth and
dignity of man. Called of God and heir of

/

14 The Presbyterians

heaven, the trader at his counter and the
digger of the field suddenly rose into equal-
ity with the noble and the king."

Motley says: "To the Calvinists, more
than to any other class of men, the political
liberties of Holland, England and America
are due." Hume says: *' It was to the
Puritans that the English owe the whole
freedom of their constitution." Of the
Scotch clergy, Buckle testifies: ''To these
men England and Scotland owe a debt they
can never pay." Our great historian, Ban-
croft, says: "He that will not honor the
memory and respect the influence of Calvin,
knows but little of the origin of American
Independence."

Democratic government, free institutions,
free schools, popular education, are the
nerve ideas traceable to Geneva and John
Calvin. The marks of their origin are dis-
tinctly upon them. They go down from
that elevation to Holland, Spain and Eng-
land, and so to the United States by way of

Presbyterian Origins 15

Southampton and Delfthaven and London-
derry and Havre.

That this tendency may be clear in our
minds and our obligation to that centre
may be distinctly recognized, let us notice
how these nerve ideas reappear successively
in the lands whence our fathers came. It
will illustrate how through

" The ages one increasing purpose runs ;
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process
of the suns."

Nv The most potent form of Presbyterianism
that came to this country came from Scot-
jand. As early as the sixth century Co-
lumba, a native of Ireland, organized the
Church of the Culdees in Scotland. For
centuries they were witnesses of the truth,
bearing often the persecutions of the Catho-
lic domination. The Scotch Reformation
was only a revival of the primitive Chris-
tianity which the Scotch had practiced for
centuries. It had been buried by Romish

y

l6 The Presbyterians

power but at the first touch of the Refor-
mation it sprang to life. The first bond to
bind together those who had received the
new truths was "The First Covenant"
signed in Edinburgh December 3d, 1557.
After many struggles the party of reform
conquered and in 1560 Parliament abolished
Roman Catholic worship, adopted a Con-
fession of Faith conformed to the Reformed
churches on the continent, appointed min-
isters in eight principal cities and superin-
tendents for other districts. In December
of that year the first General Assembly
was constituted. John Knox was the
leader in these movements. He had sat at
the feet of Calvin and became the most
illustrious exponent of Calvinism in Scot-
land. At last, after long conflict between
the nobles and the people, and the king and
the people, in 1592 Knox and his great as-
sociate, Andrew Melville, secured the com-
plete recognition of the Calvinistic faith and
the Presbyterian form of Government as

Presbyterian Origins 17

the established religion of Scotland. James
I, however, soon tried to force the
Episcopal polity, which was complaisant
toward his ambitions, on his Scottish sub-
jects. In this he was followed by his suc-
cessors Charles I, Charles II, and James II.
Bloody persecutions followed. Martyrdoms
uncounted added new glory to Scottish
history. The revolt against the Stuart
tyranny spread through the two kingdoms.
After enduring for a short time the cruel
and imbecile reign of James II the people in
1688 rose in their might and hurling him
from his throne gave the crown to William
and Mary who restored civil and religious
liberty.

But during the persecutions of the pre-
ceding years multitudes of the Scotch peo-
ple fled from their homes and found a ref-
uge in Ireland. For a while they found tol-
eration. But when Wentworth was made
the head of the Irish government, rules
of strict conformity to the Established

l8 The Presbyterians

Church were enforced. Presbyterian min-
isters who refused to conform were driven
into exile. In 1642 Ireland had need of a
Scottish army to help put down the rebel-
lion. Again Presbyterianism obtained a
footing and the first Presbytery was formed
/ in Ulster on the tenth of June, 1642.

The immigration from Scotland now
increased. Thus the Scotch and Irish
Churches, though not originally united were
one in that both grew out of persecution,
had similar struggles and triumphs.

Meantime, the dynasty of the Stuarts was
making life intolerable for all lovers of
liberty. Presbyterians, while allowed the
exercise of their worship and of their church
government, were excluded from office;
were required to have marriages solemnized
by English ministers and otherwise were
ill-treated. This, together with the troubles
between the people and their Irish land-
lords, brought many of them to America,
depleted the Ulster colony and strengthened

Presbyterian Origins 19

that Scotch-Irish element of the Presbyterian
Church in this country on which its strength
has so largely depended. The Scotch and
Irish set their faces toward the new world
as offering an asylum for the oppressed.
So all through the second century of our
country a large and very important part of
our immigration consisted of Scotch and
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. They settled
largely in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary-
land and Virginia.
\ Another stream came from France. Thev
were the Huguenots, the party which in
France represented the principles of the
Reformation. Calvin began to preach the
new doctrines in the University of Paris as
early as 1533. They rapidly took hold of
the people. Protestantism grew apace.
Attempts to check it by persecution only
fanned its flames. Not only the common
people but men of rank and influence
joined its standards. Catherine tried to
crush it by force. And in vain. Then

20 The Presbyterians

she tried treachery; and the massacre of
St. Bartholomew — the most awful butch-
ery on record — followed on August 24th,
1572, when Admiral Coligny and 5,000
Huguenots were mercilessly slain in the
streets of Paris. In sixty days through-
out France it is estimated that 70,000 per-
sons lost their lives. It is said that when
Philip II of Spain heard it, he laughed for
the first and only time in his hfe and that
Rome, when the tidings came, was delirious
with joy. War after war succeeded until
Henry IV, originally a Protestant but later a
Catholic for political reasons, on April 15th,
1599, issued the Edict of Nantes guarantee-
ing religious protection to the Protestants.
With the exception of a few towns, they
were allowed to worship in their own way
throughout the kingdom. They were al-
lowed to hold office. Their poor and sick
were to be admitted to hospitals and their
ministers were to be supported by the
state. With the accession, however, of

Presbyterian Origins 21

Louis XIII the Edict of Toleration was prac- ^
tically disregarded. Richelieu, who had
been called into the councils of Louis, de-
termined to crush the Huguenots whose
destruction he regarded as essential to the
power of France. On the accession of
Louis XIV the Protestants were for a time "^
protected, but on the death of Louis XIV
and of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of
Richelieu, the free exercise of religion was
once more in jeopardy. Things went from
bad to worse.

On October 23d, 1685, Louis revoked the
Edict of Nantes. The Protestant religion
was prohibited. Even private worship was
forbidden. Protestant pastors were to re-
move from the kingdom within fifteen days;
all Protestant schools were closed.

There was nothing left now for the de-
voted friends of the Reformation but to
leave the country they loved. Sismondi
computed that the total number of those
who emigrated was between three and four

/

22 The Presbyterians

hundred thousand. A like number had
perished in prison, on the scaffold, at the
galleys and in their attempts to escape. It
is impossible to say how large were the
colonies that came to the United States, but
they were settled at an early day in New
York, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.
The French language was used in preach-
ing in Boston till the close of the eighteenth
century and Huguenot services were cele-
brated in French and English as late as
1772. The Huguenot church in Charleston,
South Carolina, has retained in its primitive
purity the old Calvinistic liturgy of its fore-
fathers. "These pious fugitives have be-
come public blessings throughout the
world and have increased in Germany,
Holland, and England the elements of
power, prosperity, and Christian develop-
ment. In our land, too, they helped to lay
the firm corner-stones of the great republic
whose glory they most justly share."
A not unimportant contribution to the

Presbyterian Origins 23

Presbyterian history of our country came
from England. The Pilgrims went to Hol-
land in 1608, — the year after the first Prot-
estant colony came to Virginia. After
twelve years at Leyden they came to Ply-
mouth and formed the first Christian set-
tlement in New England. A few years
later another Puritan element came directly
from England and constituted the Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony. In August, 1629, a
church was organized with the Rev. Samuel
Skelton as pastor, Francis Higginson as
teacher, and Mr. Houghton as elder.

The difference between the Puritans who
came to this country directly from England
and the Pilgrims who came by way of Hol-
land is expressed in the words said to have
been uttered by Mr. Higginson on leaving
England: "We will not say, as the Separa-
tists were wont to say at their leaving Eng-
land, Farewell, Babylon! Farewell, Rome!
But we will say, Farewell, dear England!
Farewell, the church of God in England,

24 The Presbyterians

and all the Christian friends there! We do
not go to New England as Separatists from
the Church of England; though we cannot
but separate from the corruptions in it; but
we go to practice the positive part of
church reformation and propagate the
gospel in America" (Cotton Mather, Mag-
nalia, I, p. ^62] H. M. Dexter, Congrega-
tionalism, p. 414).

It probably is historically true that the
chief obligation of New England is not to
the few Pilgrims who settled the Plymouth
colony (though those 100 souls undoubt-
edly gave a stamp which never was effaced
from colonial history) but to the Puritans
who at the English Revolution in large
numbers came to our shores and formed
the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They com-
prised the very best elements of English
society. The 20,000 who, with Hooker,
Winthrop and Mather between 1630 and
1640 settled New England, gave us the dis-
tinctive type of Puritan life which, with all

Presbyterian Origins 25

its faults, has been one of the grandest ever
impressed on a young nation, and the
source of much of the intellectual and
moral power which made New England
eminent in colonizing energy, all the way
to the western prairies. But this superb
ideal of a universal Christian kingdom on
earth was dreamed long before by the great
Genevese reformer in his ** Institutes of
Religion."

It is evident that there was among the
Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
a strong tendency to Presbyterian polity.
While the churches were organized on an
independent basis they usually had one or
more elders associated with the minister in
the government of the congregation. Dr.
Briggs in his " American Presbyterianism "
mentions the following prominent ministers
as holding to the Presbyterian form of gov-
ernment: "Thomas Parker and James
Noyes of Newbury, Mass., John Eliot the
Apostle to the Indians, Peter Hobart of

26 The Presbyterians

Hingham, and John Young and Richard
Denton of Long Island." Indeed through-
out the Massachusetts Bay Colony the local
congregations were as a rule formed on the
Genevan model, — they were independent
of ecclesiastical control outside of them-
selves but their own governing body was a
bench of elders. A compromise as to gov-
ernment was made necessary by circum-
stances. A congregationalized Presbyteri-
anism spread throughout New England. As
the years went on, however, Independency
gained ground by immigration from Eng-
land and the Presbyterian element largely
emigrated to New York and New Jersey.

This statement of origins would not be
complete without a recognition of the
Dutch element in our population. They
were essentially Presbyterian. They im-
bibed their ideas of civil and religious lib-
erty from Geneva— fought for it behind the
sheltering dikes of Holland and then when
a new theatre for its development appeared

Presbyterian Origins 27

on this side of the water took their share in
transplanting those ideas to a more con-
genial climate. It is true the Dutch were
not driven hither by storms of persecution
as was the case with the English, Scotch,
Irish and French. Coming freely by per-
ception of the advantages the new world
offered, they maintained on these shores, as
did the other colonies, the principles en-
deared to them by battles and martyrdom.

It is thus apparent that Presbyterianism
in this country is the resultant of national
forces, diverse in their character and yet
one in their great moulding principles.
These principles are the Reformation doc-
trines expounded by Calvin and filtrated
through English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch and
French history and coming to unity in the
Presbyterian life of America.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has said, " It may, I
think, be reasonably held that both because
of its size and the heterogeneity of its com-
ponents, the American nation will be a long

28 The Presbyterians

time in evolving its ultimate form, but that
its ultimate form will be high. One result
is, I think, tolerably clear. From biological
truths it is to be inferred that the eventual
mixture of the allied varieties of the Aryan
race, forming the population, will produce
a more powerful type of man than has
hitherto existed, and a type of man more
plastic, more adaptable, more capable of
undergoing modification needful for com-
plete social life."

We may expect therefore that the Pres-
byterianism of the United States will be
both plastic and powerful representing the
best type of the great Reformation doc-
trines.

As one of the results of this evolution the
polity of the Presbyterian Church has been
developed more fully in this country than
in any other. Of course the essential prin-
ciples of that polity are everywhere the
same, viz., the representative church gov-
ernment and the parity of the ministry.

Presbyterian Origins 29

It is distinguished from Independency by
the former characteristic and from every
form of Episcopacy by the latter. Its gov-
ernment by representatives allies it to our
republican form of government.

The constitution of the Presbyterian
Church rests upon essentially the same
principles as that of the State, and it re-
mains to-day, without essential change, the
basis of all our legislation. Rising from it
are our representative church courts in
direct connection with the people and at
the summit is our Supreme Court guarding
the rights of individuals and the stability of
church government.

It is not necessary to insist, as is some-
times done, that the nation copied the
Presbyterian Church in deciding its consti-
tution and government. It is enough to
say that the two conventions, meeting at
the same time in the same city and with
some identity in membership, doubtless
mutually influenced each other and that the

\r

30 The Presbyterians

two forms of government then announced
are identical in depending upon popular
representation as the essential basis of leg-
islation. The Presbyterian Church, holding
the ecclesiastical equality of all ministers,
unites them and ruling elders, the direct
representatives of the people, in all her
church courts.

Beginning with the individual church the
first court is the church session, made up
of the elders of the church and the minister
of the congregation. To them is commit-
ted all spiritual rule and authority. Above
the session of the individual church is the
Presbytery, composed of the ministers and
one ruling elder from all the churches
within a given district. Appeal can be
taken from any action of the session to the
Presbytery. Above the Presbytery is the
Synod, which in this country usually em-
braces a state and which is composed
either of the ministers and representatives
of each church session or now in the larger

Presbyterian Origins 31

synods by delegates chosen by the Presby-
tery in some given ratio. Appeal may be
taken from any action of Presbytery to the
Synod. The final court of the Presbyterian
Church in this country is the General As-
sembly, which consists of representatives
in equal proportion of ministers and elders
chosen by the Presbyteries.

j^is to dgctxine : The Presbyterian Church
lays its supreme stress upon the Augus-
tinian doctrine of divine sovereignty and
free grace. Consequently Calvin in his
" Institutes of Religion " — the work which
may be regarded as the fountain head of
Calvinism — magnifies the doctrines of ef-
fectual calling, divine adoption and divine
grace. It was opposed on the one hand to
the Lutheran doctrines of consubstantiation
by which divine grace was closely tied to
the sacraments, the Presbyterian Church
maintaining that salvation is not dependent
upon any external rites or ceremonies but
wholly and only on the unmerited grace of

32 The Presbyterians

God. It was opposed on the other hand to
Arminianism which made salvation to de-
pend upon the free will and choice of men,
the Presbyterian Church holding that the
choice unto salvation is of God while yet
man is left entirely free in the acceptance
of the offers of salvation.
^Sv The standards of doctrine in the Presby-
terian Church are the Westminster Confes-
sion of Faith and the Longer and Shorter
Catechisms. They are to be received by
ministers and elders as containing the sys-
tem of doctrine taught in the Holy Scrip-
tures. They are not imposed upon private
members of the church. Of them only
faith in Christ and a purpose to live a Chris-
tian life is required.

The part played by Presbyterians in the
subsequent development of the Presby-
terian polity will appear in the following
chapters. It was to be expected from their
origin that they would be fighters for free-
dom. Their first fight was for the inde-

Presbyterian Origins 33

pendence of the colonies. Their second
fight was against the wilderness, to subju-
gate it by the force of Christian civihzation.
This has been the battle of a century, dur-
ing which the standards first planted in
New England snows or the solitudes of
southern palmettos have been pressed on-
ward at the front of the pioneer advance
until crossing mountains and plains and
mountains again they were erected among
the palm groves of California, and in the
snows of Alaska, to claim our country for
Christ. The story of this advancing cause
will be the burden of these brief pages.

CHAPTER II

LAYING FOUNDATIONS

The Presbyterian Church was fortunate
in the men who first impressed themselves
on the unformed communities of the new
world. The early settlements in New Eng-
land were largely Calvinistic in theology
and divided as to polity between Independ-
ents and Presbyterians.

In 1620 the Mayflower brought the Pil-
grims who constituted the Plymouth Colony.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony coming five
years later was Presbyterian. It was sup-
ported by the Presbyterians of England.
N^ The first church in this colony was organ-
ized in 1629.

The Puritan spirit was a spirit of refor-
mation and missions. Unhappy theological
distinctions at an early period vexed and
34

Laying Foundations 35

ultimately divided the Church; but the be-
ginnings were those of a missionary pur-
pose— single — devoted — self-sacrificing.

In no one personality of those early
leaders is this missionary spirit so manifest
as in the life and work of John Eliot— ''the
Apostle to the Indians." After a residence
of several years at Roxbury, during which
time he devoted himself to acquiring the
Indian language, in October, 1646, he began
his ministry among the Indians living along
the banks of the Charles River.

England and Scotland took a lively in-
terest in his mission. Nearly twenty years
before the beginning of his labors the char-
ter granted the Presbyterian Colony of
Massachusetts Bay declared that to "win
and incite the natives of the country to the
knowledge and obedience of the only true
God and Saviour of mankind and the Chris-
tian faith was in the royal intention and the
adventurers' free profession the principal
end of this plantation."

36 The Presbyterians

However far the American people have
strayed from this sublime purpose in their
subsequent relations with the natives, it is
refreshing to recall that the first aim of that
colony which so impressed itself on the
subsequent history of New England was to
establish the gospel not only among the
colonists but as well and chiefly among the
natives. That this aim was strongly sup-
ported in the mother country is evident in
the organization, by authority of Parliament
in 1649 of the "Society for the propagation
of the gospel in New England." The
charter of all subsequent missionary opera-
tions in our country may be read in the
words in which this society was authorized
"to receive and dispose of monies in such
manner as shall best and principally con-
duce to the preaching and propagating of
the gospel among the natives and for the
maintenance of schools and nurseries of
learning for the education of the children of
the natives." A collection taken in England

Laying Foundations 37

and Wales for this great undertaking re-
sulted in about ;£i2,ooo. This sum, so
large for those times, is proof of a foreign
missionary spirit centuries before the mod-
ern organization of the cause. The Pres-
byterian Church in England was so steady
a contributor to the missions of Eliot on the
mainland and Mayhew and others on Mar-
tha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Isles, that
by 1689 the work among the Indians
showed six churches and twenty-four
preachers. Many of these were natives
who had been trained and ordained by
Eliot. The churches organized by Eliot
had a bench of ruling elders, and Presby-
teries were constituted "for advice and
consultation only," a compromise with the
Congregational polity made necessary by
the circumstances.
V Presbyterianism came to New York first
by way of New England. Disputes con-
cerning baptism and other non-essentials,
growing so violent as to result in persecu-

38 The Presbyterians

tion, drove out of New England some of
her best men to find homes and service
elsewhere. Among these was the Rev.
Francis Doughty — the first Presbyterian
minister of New York City. Silenced for
non-conformity in England he emigrated to
the new world and settled at Taunton,
Mass., in 1637. After establishing a church
there his views on infant baptism brought
such persecution upon him that he was ob-
liged to flee the country. He found a
refuge on Long Island, with the purpose of
establishing there a Presbyterian colony.
Indian wars broke up the colony and
\Doughty escaped to Manhattan Island
where he ministered for five years as the
pastor of a congregation which later be-
came the First Presbyterian church. A con-
flict with the Dutch Governor made it
necessary for him to leave the city. He
found a home in Maryland where he labored
until his death, a faithful and honored
preacher of the gospel. Dr. Charles A

Laying Foundations 39

Briggs calls him ''the Apostle of Presby-
terianism in America." '* He preached here
and there to little flocks which were subse-
quently gathered into the Presbyterian
Church when it was organized into Presby-
teries and Synods. Driven from one place
by intolerance and persecution he fled to
another. He carried on his Master's work
in spite of difficulties of every kind." Un-
compromising men were needed for those
days. Doughty was one of them.

Richard Denton was the second Presby-
terian minister to preach in New York City.
He too was a New Englander. Coming
from England in 1630 he setled first at
Wethersfield, Conn., and later at Stamford.
In 1644, with a portion of his flock he
crossed the sound to Hempstead, L. I. He
preached there and in New York until 1658
when he returned to England. He seems
to have occupied the building in which the
Dutch congregation worshipped and to
have continued the labors of his predeces-

je

40 The Presbyterians

sor, Francis Doughty. He was recognized
• as a Presbyterian by the Dutch pastors of
the city who said of him that he was, **an
honest, pious and learned man."

But the man who has the honor of laying
the foundations of organized Presbyterian-
ism in this country is J^rancis Makemie — an
Irishman from Donegal County, Ireland,
who after a brief missionary tour in the
Barbadoes came to the eastern shore of
Maryland and organized the Presbyterian
church of Snow Hill in 1684. It is worth
mentioning that in those days of the intol-
erance of the English Church, the Presby-
terian Church began its existence in a
colony founded by Lord Baltimore, a Ro-
man Catholic nobleman! Makemie was
the man for the time. Resolute, grave,
self-sacrificing, and utterly devoted to giv-
ing the gospel to as many communities as
he could reach — he journeyed in restless
and perilous adventure from the Carolinas
to New York, gathering together "the poor

Laying Foundations 41

desolate people "" wherever opportunity of-
fered and preaching to them with the zeal
of an apostle the gospel which came to
many in their isolation like a strain of half-
forgotten music. Everywhere he found
welcome. His hardships were continuous,
but nothing daunted him. " In labors more
abundant" might be written of him as of
Paul. He not only itinerated from one of
the colonies to the other, but he crossed the
ocean and pleaded with ministers and
people in London for men and money with
which to respond to the calls of the wilder-
ness-swallowed people of the new world.
He not only labored and journeyed, he
also suffered for the cause he loved. In
New York he was thrown into prison for
preaching without license and, though the
imprisonment was shown to be illegal, he
and his associate Hampton, after six weeks
in jail, were obliged to pay a bill of costs
amounting to more than eighty-three
pounds.

42 The Presbyterians

Thus far no Presbytery had been organ-
ized. There were scattered Presbyterian
churches all the way from Boston to Vir-
ginia, but they were isolated flocks, Pres-
byterian in their origin and sympathies and
modeled after the polity of the Church in
that they had ruling elders, but by neces-
sity of the situation they were separate
and independent churches. The name of
Makemie is connected with the organiza-
tion of the Church in this country in that
he was the Moderator of the first Pres-
bytery, which convened in Philadelphia in
1705.

Some kind of informal Presbyterial Con-
ference must have been held in Philadel-
phia in 1701, when it appears Jedediah
Andrews was ordained to the ministry.
But not until four years later was there a
regular organization. The first pages of
the minutes of that meeting are lost. The
preceding year Makemie had gone to Eng-
land in search of help. The London minis-

Laying Foundations 43

ters responded to his appeal and furnished
funds to sustain missionaries. Two men
answered the call and John Hampton, an
Irishman, and George McNish, a Scotchman,
accompanied Makemie on his return. These
three,, with Jedediah Andrews, John Wil-
son, Nathaniel Taylor and Samuel Davies
constituted the first Presbytery. The cos-
mopolitan character of American Presby-
terianism is foreshadowed in the personnel
of that Presbytery. Scotch-Irish, Scotch
and Irish ministers united with New Eng-
land Puritans in the organization. It was
less an ecclesiastical than a missionary
organization. Pressed by their isolation
and need of mutual encouragement this
first Presbytery was as Makemie described
it chiefly a ''meeting of ministers for min-
isterial exercise to consult the most proper
measures for advancing religion and propa-
gating Christianity." All the correspond-
ence of the Presbytery with kindred bodies
in New England and Europe breathes the

44 The Presbyterians

same spirit of devotion to the souls of
men. A letter to Connecticut ministers
written in 1708, declares the object of
the formation of the Presbytery to have
been "for the furthering and promoting
the true interests of religion and godliness."
In a letter the next year to Sir Edmund Har-
rison, an eminent dissenter in London, they
say: " It is a sore distress and trouble to us
that we are not able to comply with the
desires of sundry places crying unto us for
ministers to deal forth the word of life unto
them." These appeals for help were not
in vain. Liberal responses came from the
mother country. The churches grew and
were strengthened and new stations were
occupied. And yet how feeble were those
beginnings. Only a large faith could have
seen in them ground for encouragement.
In 1 7 10, in a letter to the Presbytery of
Dublin they confess and deplore their
weakness. *' In Virginia there was but one
congregation, in Maryland four, in Penn-

Laying Foundations 45

sylvania five and in the Jerseys two, with
some places in New York."

From the beginning of the eighteenth
century the growth of the Presbytery was
steady and rapid. Ministers from Ireland
and Scotland came in increasing numbers.
On Long Island several churches had been
organized, chiefly by Puritan ministers from
New England. These churches were some-
times called Independent, sometimes Pres-
byterian. As a rule they had one or more
elders and were therefore Presbyterian in
their tendencies — though a complete organ-
ization was at that time impossible. The
churches had to adapt themselves to cir-
cumstances and the ''feeble folk" were
evidently more intent on the propagation of
the gospel than on ecclesiastical forms.
These developed according to their environ-
ment, but the living germ was faith in the
gospel and a burning zeal to have it prevail.

The question often discussed as to the
nationalities most represented in the Church

46 The Presbyterians

of that time is not easy of settlement on
account of defective records. That the
English Revolution had sent to us many
Dissenters from England, Scotland and Ire-
land cannot be doubted. This is specially
true of those who landed in Virginia, Mary-
land and Pennsylvania. There were also a
number of Scotch Presbyterians settled over
Congregational churches in New England.
Many Puritan and English ministers had
gone south from Massachusetts and Con-
necticut and settled in Virginia and the
Carolinas. Among the Scotchmen listed in
the Presbytery of Philadelphia we find the
names of McNish, Boyd, Anderson, Gil-
lespie and Witherspoon. Ministers from
London were Lawson and McGill. From
Ireland came Makemie, Hampton, Henry
and Orr; while from New England came
Andrews, Wilson, Taylor, Smith, Wade,
Morgan and Pomroy. But whatever the
national origins and whatever types of
Presbyterianism they represented (if in

Laying Foundations 47

those days there could be said to be any
types) the stress of common necessities and
zeal for a common service bound them in
most fraternal ties. In view of the divi-
sions which were soon to follow, one lin-|
gers with satisfaction and pride over harJ
monies of early Colonial Church life— har-
monies undisturbed by rivalries of place or
doctrine. The differences between them
had been large enough if they had given
time to think upon them. But these differ-
ences were forgotten in the pressure of the
great work that was upon them. Their
poverty precluded pride and their weakness
forbade division. The new century there-
fore opened with a small company of ear-
nest souls — scattered — imperfectly organ-
ized— surrounded by dangers — hampered
by weakness, but burning in their zeal
and triumphant in their faith over all the
obstacles that blocked their path.

CHAPTER III

OPENING OF A NEW CENTURY

In the early years of the eighteenth cen-
tury the Church grew apace. The one
Presbytery no longer sufficed. The need
for a division of Presbytery was less in its
size than in its wide dispersion which ren-
dered attendance on its meetings both diffi-
cult and burdensome. Moreover there were
now many churches in New England and
Long Island which were independent less
by conviction than necessity. They would
gladly be Presbyterian if there were a
chance. Mr. McNish who had been Ma-
kemie's colaborer in Maryland had removed
to Jamaica, L. 1. He was desirous of secur-
ing a Presbyterial organization on Long
Island. He and Pomroy of Newtown were

advised '*to use their best endeavors with
48

Opening of a New Century 49

the neighboring brethren that are settled
there which as yet join not with us " to
unite in the erection of a Presbytery. Thus
was formed the Presbytery of Long Island.
The remaining members and churches of
the Presbytery were organized into the
Presbyteries of Philadelphia, New Castle
and Snow Hill. So in a single decade
the little Presbytery of Philadelphia had
grown into a Synod. The Presbyteries
then organized were of course small and
feeble, but they constituted local centres
that gathered to themselves the strength
of the churches in their bounds and thus
provided for the more rapid increase and
the better organization of the denomina-
tion.

One cannot look back on these early days
without a feeling of just pride. The men
who at that time represented Presbyterian-
ism were not indeed without the weak-
nesses inherent in human nature, but they
were heroes in a service of rare self-denial

^o The Presbyterians

and devotion. In poverty, isolation, ob-
scurity and often in great physical perils
they were true to the loftiest aims of the
gospel and toiled under its best inspirations.
They were not consumed by denomina-
tional ambition but by the zeal of God's
house and kingdom. The scant records
which remain of their proceedings breathe
a supreme desire to have the wilderness lit
by gospel light and organized into Christian
institutions.

Only by the dominance of such a spirit
could have been secured the harmony
which up to this time marked the councils
of men of such diverse origin and training.
The men from New England wrought in
perfect accord with those from Scotland,
Ireland and Wales. That there had been
great differences between them — both of
doctrine and government — if they had
stopped to inquire, might be judged from
the schools whence they had come. But
they were solidified by common dangers

Opening of a New Century 51

and pressed too sorely by common necessi-
ties to give attention to minor differences.
They were soldiers at the heat of the con-
flict. It was no time to differentiate. In
the light of subsequent history one might
almost wish that the pressure of hard times
had never been Hfted.

A glance at the component parts of the
four Presbyteries constituting the first
Synod will reveal the cosmopolitan charac-
ter of early Presbyterianism. The Congre-
gational influence and tendency were strong
in the Long Island Presbytery. There were
only four churches of Presbyterian order
connected with it at its organization in
1717, namely, Jamaica, Newtown, Setauket
and Southampton. The membership was
chiefly from New England. One or two
of the churches had no ruling elders until
years after the formation of the Presbytery.
Other churches on the island, composed of
Congregational elements, gradually came
into the Presbytery. Presbyterianism there

52 The Presbyterians

was an evolution from Congregational ante-
cedents.

The Presbytery of Philadelphia was made
up of two pastors from New England, two
from Wales, one from Scotland and one
from Ireland. The Newcastle Presbytery
was wholly Scotch and Scotch-Irish and
that of Snow Hill, having only three mem-
bers, consisted likewise of foreign min-
isters.

The Church thus made up of various
elements grew in strength with the growth
of the colonies. So far it had made no
progress in the city of New York, though
Presbyterian ministers had preached there
for longer or shorter periods. The reason
for its failure was in the opposition of the
Episcopal Church. So long as Lord Corn-
berry remained governor of the colony
there could be no hope of religious toler-
ation. Every effort to gather the Presby-
terians of Manhattan Island into a perma-
nent congregation was thwarted until dis-

Opening of a New Century 53

sensions sprang up in the Episcopal Church.
Lord Cornberry's disgraceful administration
came to a close in 17 14. Relieved thus of
civic disfavor and of the aggressive spirit of
Episcopacy which had sought by govern-
mental aid to close all but "the Estab-
lished " churches, the Presbyterians who
had been meeting quietly in private houses,
determined in 17 16 to organize a church.
They called the Rev. James Anderson from
New Castle, Del. He was favorably re-
ceived. The infant congregation had no
building for worship but was allowed to
occupy the Town Hall, where regular serv-
ices were maintained for about three years.
Meantime the handful of Presbyterians were
busily engaged in raising funds for an edi-
fice of their own. Their appeals for help
were heeded. Scotland and Connecticut
responded generously and in 1719 on a lot
in Wall Street the First Presbyterian Church
was erected.
All efforts to secure a charter for the

54 The Presbyterians

church were thwarted by the opposition of
Trinity Church which was still claiming to
be the Church of New York. The pastor
and a few members of the church held the
property in fee simple until 1730, when,
there being no probability of securing a
charter, it was transferred to the Church of
Scotland and held by that church till 1766.

The imperious spirit of Anderson finally
divided the church, and Jonathan Edwards
for a while ministered to those who had
withdrawn. In 1726 Anderson resigned
and Ebenezer Pemberton — a man '*of po-
lite breeding," pure morals and warm de-
votion succeeded to the pastorate and healed
the divisions. His ministry, lasting for
thirty years, was one of great fruitfulness.

A number of very able men at this time
came to leadership in the church. Jona-
than Dickinson, a graduate of Yale College
united with the Presbytery of Philadelphia
in 17 1 7. He had previously for a number
of years labored at Elizabethtown and in the

Opening of a New Century 55

regions round about. In many respects he
was the leading spirit of the times and had
more share than any other man in shaping
the American Presbyterian Church. By
endowments and acquirements he was
fitted for leadership. A well disciplined
mind, splendid poise of judgment, firmness,
tempered with moderation and consider-
ation, and a lofty and single Christian pur-
pose, combined to fit him for the times into
which he had come. The heterogeneous
elements of Presbyterian life in colonial
days needed a masterly organizing spirit.
Dickinson's was that spirit and his name
and influence are interwoven with all the
subsequent history of the church.
^ The most commanding family in that
early history is that of the Jennents. Will-
iam Tennent was an Irishman, educated in
Scotland and an ordained minister of the
Church of Ireland. He came to America as
a dissenter and after giving reasons for dis-
sent from Episcopacy he was received by

56 The Presbyterians

the Synod of Philadelphia in 1718. He be-
gan his ministry in East Chester, New
York; two years later he moved to Ne-
^^ shaminy, Pa., where, founding the Log
College, he became the father of Presby-
terian education. The little college soon
became in fact a theological seminary.
From it went forth numbers of young men
sound in faith and burning with the mis-
sionary zeal they had caught from their great
teacher. The Log College has become
Princeton University and the spirit of Chris-
tian education born within those lowly
walls reappears and flourishes in hundreds
of Christian schools all over the country.
Tennent's sons, John, William, Gilbert and
Charles, represented the revival element of
the Colonial Church. Full of a zeal for souls
which was inspired, — or at least increased
— by the wonderful preaching and personal
influence of Whitefield, they went with
fiery steps on evangelistic tours through New
Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and

Opening of a New Century 57

everywhere aroused churches from the
formalism into which they were sinking.
Their methods drew toward them first the
suspicions and afterward the protests of
their conservative brethren. Antagonisms
developed which later culminated in the
division of 1741. Other names, worthy to
be mentioned as important factors in church
life and work at this time, are Moses Dick-
inson, a brother of Jonathan, Joseph Lamb,
a graduate of Yale College, John Orme and
Robert Laing from England, Thomas Evans
from Wales, and Thomas Craighead whom
Cotton Mather designated as "a man of
singular piety, meekness, humility and in-
dustry in the work of God."

During this period (171 7 to 1729) the
Synod increased from fifteen to nearly
thirty members. It was largely by immi-
gration from Ireland. The Irish of Ulster,
oppressed by the Established Church, turned
to America as the land of freedom to
worship God. Some of these immigrants

58 The Presbyterians

went into New England and gave a Pres-
byterian stamp to Massachusetts and Con-
necticut which can still be read in their
history. But most of them went into the
middle colonies. Pennsylvania specially
had a reputation for toleration and thither
were directed the footsteps of many Irish-
men fleeing the persecution of their Island.
These newcomers, both in Pennsylvania
and Virginia, pressed out to the frontier and
among the Alleghany Mountains formed
an American Ulster larger and richer than
that they had abandoned.
\ Allusion has been made to the missionary
temper of early Presbyterianism. It took
an organized form at this time. The
growth of the colonies and so the need of
more churches rested as a constant burden
on the Presbyterian pioneers. Their ap-
peals to the mother country were frequent
and urgent. James Anderson was specially
active in seeking such help. As early as
1716 he wrote to the Synod of Glasgow

Opening of a New Century 59

pleading for one Sabbath collection an-
nually for missionary uses in the new
world. He wrote again and again insisting
that the moral and spiritual conditions in
the colonies were such as to threaten the
direst evils unless the gospel could do its
work among them. At last his voice was
heeded. At the meeting of Synod in 1717
a " Fund for Pious Uses " was founded and
was thence regularly replenished by gen-
erous gifts from Scotland. In 17 19 the
Synod appointed a committee to " consider
the fund," and their sense of the impor-
tance of doing something for Presbyterian-
ism in the Metropolis is evidenced by the
fact that they recommended that "a tenth
part of the neat produce of the Glasgow
collection be given to the Presbyterian con-
gregation of New York toward the support
of the gospel among them."

CHAPTER IV

THE DIVISION OF 1 74 1

I A NEW chapter in Presbyterian history
opens with the year 1729. Up to this time

( no theological tests had ever been required.
Theological questions had been subordi-
nated to the strenuous struggle for exist-
ence. The ministers, whether they came
from New England or the old world, were
sound in the faith but they were not
troubled by any necessity for avouching
their orthodoxy. It was accepted. It has
sometimes been surmised that the lost
pages of the first meeting of the Presbytery
of Philadelphia contained some statement
of doctrine or form of subscription. There
is nothing, however, on which to base this
opinion. Indeed it was not till 1698 that
anything was known of subscription in the

Irish Church and Makemie had then been
60

The Division of 1741 61

for several years away from Ireland. At
that time, and for many years thereafter,
subscription to the Confession of Faith was
not so much a test of orthodoxy in the
Church as a guarantee to the government
that those who claimed its toleration were
sound in the faith and fit to be tolerated.
In 1705, the very year of the organization
of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the Irish
Synod, to vindicate its character to the gov-
ernment, reenacted a law requiring that all
candidates for ordination should subscribe
to the Westminster standards. This worked
well till 1714 when a demand arose among
some for a form of doctrine more simple
and concise than the Confession of Faith.
It was a demand for a short creed from
people who accepted the confession but
desired it put in plainer language. The
Synod, however, adhered to the confession
while allowing a brief substituted statement
wherever desired by the state.
But troubles were coming upon the Irish

62 The Presbyterians

church. In a society called "the Belfast
Society," and organized by Presbyterian
ministers for mutual improvement, senti-
ments so radical, and so manifestly at vari-
ance with the doctrines of the church as to
create alarm, were freely expressed. This
defection from the faith was aggravated by
reports of similar trouble on the continent
as well as in England. Arian and Unitarian
sentiments were being openly avowed.
The Synod took the alarm. An effort to
preserve unity by compromise intensified
the difficulty by dividing the ranks of the
orthodox. An effort for harmony by de-
claring that the non-subscribers be "per-
mitted to subscribe the confession," was
by them rejected and when they proposed
what would be agreeable to them, it was so
remote from what the Irish church had ever
required, that the subscribers, who were in
a clear majority, divided the church by de-
claring that the attitude of the minority put
it out of their power to maintain ministeriaP

The Division of 1741 63

communion with them in church judicato-
ries as formerly, " consistent with the dis-
charge of our ministerial office and the
peace of our own consciences."

About this time the immigration to the
colonies from Ireland became large. The
consequences were feared by the church in
this country. Many of those displeased
with the action of Synod would doubtless
come over. Besides, the feeble churches
here needed the sympathy and help of their
brethren on the other side. Their sound-
ness must be above suspicion. Hence the
need in the judgment of many of a clear
declaration. It is thought that the Presby-
tery of New Castle took the lead in this
movement for subscription. This is likely
for the leading spirit of that Presbytery
(the Rev. Thomas Craighead) was the
brother of the Rev. Robert Craighead, the
moderator of the Irish Synod and the man
who headed the Irish movement for adher-
ence to historic standards.

64 The Presbyterians

An effort looking to the adoption of
standards was first made in Synod in 1727.
But it was so strenuously opposed by New
England men and others that the overture
was laid on the table. It remained there
till the following year when it was again
considered and again postponed as too im-
portant a measure to be hastily enacted.
In 1729 it was referred to a committee con-
sisting of the wisest men in the body. Dick-
inson, Andrews and Pierson represented
those who feared the measure as hostile to
freedom; while Thomson, Craighead and
Anderson stood for those who felt that the
safety of the church required that the in-
trants to the ministry should declare their
doctrine in no uncertain terms. As is usual
in such discussions neither party secured all
it desired. This doubtless was well. The
New England element was too much afraid
of legislation. The other side would have
overlegislated. So a compromise resulted
1 which has been the banner under which the

The Division of 1741 65

Presbyterian Church in this country has
marched to its best victories. This docu-
ment is so important that we give it in full.

^ Adopting Act.

"Although the Synod do not claim or
pretend to any authority of imposing our
faith upon other men's consciences, but do
profess our just dissatisfaction with, and
abhorrence of, such impositions, and do
utterly disclaim all legislative power and
authority in the church, being willing to
receive one another as Christ has received
us to the glory of God, and admit to fel-
lowship in sacred ordinances all such as we
have ground to believe Christ will at last
admit to the Kingdom of Heaven, yet we
are undoubtedly obliged to take care that
the faith once delivered to the saints be
kept pure and uncorrupt among us and so
handed down to our posterity. And do,
therefore, agree that all the ministers of this
Synod or that shall hereafter be admitted

66 The Presbyterians

into this Synod, shall declare their agree-
ment in, and approbation of, the Confession
of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Cate-
chisms of the Assembly of Divines at West-
minster, as being in all the essential and
necessary articles good forms of sound
words and systems of Christian doctrine,
and do also adopt the said confession and
catechisms as the confession of our faith.
And we do also agree that all the Presby-
teries within our bounds shall always take
care not to admit any candidate of the min-
istry into the exercise of the sacred func-
tions, but what declares his agreement in
opinion with all the essential and necessary
articles of said confession, either by sub-
scribing the said Confession of Faith and
catechism, or by a verbal declaration of
their assent thereto, as such minister or
candidate shall think best. And in case
any minister of this Synod, or any candidate
for the ministry, shall have any scruple
with respect to any article or articles of said

The Division of 1741 67

confession or catechisms, he shall, at the
time of his making said declaration, declare
his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod
who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to
the exercise of the ministry within our
bounds, and to ministerial communion, if
the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his
scruple or mistake to be only about articles
not essential and necessary in doctrine,
worship, or government. But if the Synod
or Presbytery shall judge such ministers or
candidates erroneous in essential and neces-
sary articles of faith, the Synod or Presby-
tery shall declare them uncapable of com-
munion with them. And the Synod do
solemnly agree that none of us will traduce
or use any opprobrious terms of those that
differ from us in these extra-essential and
not-necessary points of doctrine, but treat
them with the same friendship, kindness,
and brotherly love, as if they had not dif-
fered from us in such sentiments."
For several years following the adoption

68 The Presbyterians

of the Act of 1729 the Church had marked
prosperity. In a decade nearly forty names
were added to the roll of ministers. The
churches grew in numbers and strength.
The missionary spirit was strong and active.
New settlements were supplied with the
gospel, new regions were explored.
s^ But events soon began to shape toward
the ecclesiastical troubles which in ^1741
divided the Synod. The discussions raged
not wholly around doctrinal questions but
around those of vital religion. The men
who figured most conspicuously were the
Tennents. William Tennent by sheer force
of character and conviction early became a
leader in the young church. Devoted at
once to spiritual religion and to education
he established the Log College about 1726.
It soon became a fountain of blessing to the
regions around. A theological seminary, it
trained candidates for the ministry and so
impressed them with the spirit of its
founder that they went abroad burning and

The Division of 1741 69

shining lights in the darkness. William
Tennent's sons, all ministers, were scarce
inferior to their father in evangelistic fervor.
Gilbert especially, when yet a young man,
sprang to leadership. As a preacher he was
bold, intense and spiritual; as a leader in
the Church he had no superior; not always
wise in methods — sometimes arrogant in
manner — stern as an old prophet — he had
the zeal and consecration of an apostle.

It is likely that at this time the Church
had lapsed far into formalism. There was
no lack of vigor and aggression in the life
of the Church, but it lacked the spiritual
vitality on which alone a Church can thrive.
The Tennents saw and deplored this condi-
tion. They did more. They resisted it.
Everywhere with uncompromising preach-
ing and in a spirit like that of Whitefield,
whose tones were beginning to be heard
among the colonies, the Tennents sum-
moned the Church to a deeper religious life.
In 1734 Gilbert Tennent overtured the

70 The Presbyterians

Synod to a greater care in the examination
of candidates for the ministry, not along
doctrinal lines but along those of personal
acquaintance with God. The overture —
tender and searching— was adopted by the
Synod. But a few years later he was so
dissatisfied with the views of a candidate
for the ministry and the action of Synod
that in exasperation he attacked the ortho-
doxy of that body and charged it with in-
difference to the interests of vital godliness.
He was further incensed by action which
seemed to discredit his father's college in
that it required that candidates for the min-
istry should be examined not only by Pres-
bytery but by the Synod as well.

The aggressive spirit of the Tennents,
even though they were aggressive in the
interests of godliness, was sure to waken
opposition. This was headed by a brother
Irishman, Robert Cross. He had preached
for awhile af Jamaica, L. I., but went to
Philadelphia as the colleague of Andrews in

The Division of 1741 71

the First Church in 1737. He had decided
opinions about the revival matters which
under the influence of Whitefield and the
Tennents were becoming prominent and
potent. He openly antagonized the great
English evangelist; who indeed retorted by
declaring that Cross had preached his con-
gregation away.

A battle was thus joined between those
who had adhered rigidly to ecclesiastical
order and those who claimed freedom from
such restraints. On the side of the Ten-
nents were Samuel Blair, an Irish graduate
of the Log College, a man of learning and
piety and pastor of the church at Faggs
Manor, Pa., and Alexander Craighead of Up-
per Octorara, Pa. — a revivalist of great
power. These three conducted evangelistic
campaigns throughout all that region in en-
tire disregard of the rule of Synod that no
minister should preach within the bounds of
any Presbytery without license of the
Synod or its commission.

72 The Presbyterians

With Robert Cross, in resistance of what
he regarded as irregular methods, sided
John Thomson, the author of the overture
which resulted in the Adopting Act; Fran-
cis AHson the finest scholar in the Old Side
ranks; Cathcart of Brandy wine; Boyd of
Octorara and others.

Although before the division the lines
came to be drawn close about the question
of a verbal or a freer subscription, this ques-
tion was not at the bottom of the causes
which led to the division. Both parties ac-
cepted the Westminster standards— both
were true to the Adopting Act. It was rather
a question between a formalism which main-
tained the letter of ecclesiastical law in the
interest of the demands of orthodoxy, and
a liberalism which demanded freedom from
the letter to subserve what it regarded as
the requirement of vital religion.

There was a middle party — Dickinson of
Elizabethtown, N. J., Pemberton of New
York, Pierson of Woodbridge, N. J., Gil-

The Division of 1741 73

lespie and Hutchinson of New Castle, Pa.,
and others — friends of the Tennents who
shared their revival spirit. But they were
strenuous in their insistence on ecclesiastical
order. Had they all been present at the
critical time and acted together they could
doubtless have harmonized the conflicting
elements— at least to the extent of prevent-
ing a rupture.

Meantime the immigration increased.
Conservative members of Synod feared
the increasing influence of men coming
among them who had become tainted with
the radicalism of the liberal party in Ireland.
Some new guards must be stationed at the
entrance to the ministry. The terms of the
Adopting Act were not sufficiently explicit;
— "essential and necessary articles " was a
phrase which left every man free to decide
for himself what was essential and neces-
sary. Hence arose a demand for stricter
terms; even to the extreme of requiring an
acceptance of the verbal theory of subscrip-

74 The Presbyterians

tion. Thus: In 1730 the New Castle Pres-
bytery required verbal subscription to the
standards and two years later the Presby-
tery of Donegal, the daughter of New
Castle, followed its example. In both cases
the action was in violation of the terms of
the Adopting Act. The new side justly
enough contended that such subscription
would in effect annul the Adopting Act and
thus destroy instead of cementing the bonds
of union.

So the breach grew wider. The Synod
took decisive action to protect the purity
and orthodoxy of ministers and churches.
An overture was adopted providing that, in
view of the dangers of an incursion of min-
isters from Ireland who might not be sound
in the faith, no minister should be received
from abroad till he had given an opportu-
nity to know his character by having
preached six months within the Synod's
bounds and that no student should be re-
ceived under care of the Presbytery till he

The Division of 1741 75

had given opportunity to know his parts
and his behavior.

In 1738 another step aggravating to the
liberal party was taken by the Presbytery of
. Lewes, urging the appointment of a com-
^ mittee of Synod to examine candidates and
give them a certificate. The New Bruns-
wick Presbytery, in full sympathy with the
views of the Tennents, regarded the action
with special disfavor. It was a reflection
on the Log College. That such a young
and local institution should not be highly
esteemed by graduates of European uni-
versities was not remarkable, but with other
actions of Synod and Presbyteries it put one
more strain on bonds which were already
tense almost to breaking. In resistance of
the Synod's rule the Presbytery of New
Brunswick licensed John Rowland and sent
him to a vacancy in the Presbytery of Phila-
delphia. The Synod condemned this high
handed action of New Brunswick. The
same year the Synod still further offended

76 The Presbyterians

the Tennents and their friends by appointing
a committee to take steps toward the erec-
tion of a seminary of learning. The com-
mittee consisted of representative men, —
Dickinson and Pemberton of New England;
Anderson, a Scotchman and Cross an Irish-
man. The time had undoubtedly come
when such a step was necessary but the
utter ignoring of the little college was not
calculated to promote peace.

The presence in the country of White-
field in 1740 was a great blessing to vital
religion but it incidentally hastened the di-
vision of the Synod. Wherever the great
preacher went a fire of enthusiasm was
kindled. In country places thousands from
all the region round about hung on his
burning words. In Philadelphia ten thou-
sand people heard his farewell sermon.
Congregations were divided. To some his
was as the voice of an apostle calling the
church from deadness to life. To others
his ministry was a disturbing element. He

The Division of 1741 77

rode roughly over all synodical rules, claim-
ing the right to preach anywhere, at any
time, without regard to church order.

The Presbyteries of New York and New
Brunswick had regarded his course with
approval; thus arousing afresh the suspi-
cions of the Old Side who saw in these
signs an evidence that the Church was
drifting from her moorings. When the
Synod met in 1740 the times were turbu-
lent. The first question to the front was
that which Whitefield's itinerations had
invited; should ministers be allowed to
preach within the bounds of Presbyteries
without permission ? After a sharp debate
the Synod was obliged to reconsider its
previous action. The popular feeling in
favor of Whitefield and the Tennents was
so abundant and manifest that an attempt
to keep the Presbyteries to strict adherence
to the Synod's rule was found impossible.
Intinerant preaching was therefore sanc-
tioned and the Synod contented itself with

yS The Presbyterians

warning the churches against the dangers
of ''divisions in the congregations."

But divisions were coming, not in the
congregations only but in the Synod itself.
Although the Synod adopted a paper sol-
emnly admonishing ministers to approve
themselves to God in all their service and to
consider the weight of charges which had
been made against them, scarcely had the
body adjourned when divisions and aliena-
tions were manifest on every hand. On
both sides a censorious spirit reigned. The
Old Side attacked the New Side as lawless
and defiant. The New Side retorted charg-
ing a lack of true religion on their brethren.
When the Synod of 1741 met it became
promptly evident that only the wisest and
most conciliatory policy could prevent a
rupture. But mediators were not found.
The Presbytery of New York, which had
somewhat held aloof from the struggle,
was absent to a man. So the Synod con-
vened in a state of mind ready for extreme

The Division of 1741 79

measures. They came quickly enough.
The Old Side brought in a protest against
those sitting in Synod who had not adopted
the standards in an ipsissima verba sub-
scription. Certain Presbyteries had so
adopted them and the demand was now
made that this literal subscription should be
erected into a Synodical rule. They further
charged upon the brethren of the New Side
many irregularities which made union with
the obnoxious brethren ** monstrously
absurd." When the protest was read a
scene of indescribable confusion ensued.
Some who had not seen it came forward
and signed it on the spot. The New
Brunswick men claimed the right to be
heard. Andrews, the moderator, to whom
the protest came as a surprise, left the
chair. The spectators in the galleries, sym-
pathizing with the New Side demanded
that the protestors be expelled. Amid
great confusion the roll was called. The
New Brunswick men were in the minority.

8o The Presbyterians

They left the Church followed by the pop-
ulace.^ Thus the Church was divided. Dr.
Hodge says, **It is plain from this state-
ment that not even the forms of an eccle-
siastical, much less of a judicial, proceeding
were observed at this crisis. There was no
motion, no vote, not even a presiding officer
in the chair. It was a disorderly rupture."
Passion ruled the hour with its usual re-
sults. One hour of a conciliatory spirit on
both sides had, saved the friction and aliena-
tion of years.

CHAPTER V

MISSIONARIES AND PATRIOTS

\ The history of the next few years was
one of repeated efforts at compromise. On
both sides an earnest desire for reunion had
developed. The Presbytery of New York
tried to act as a mediator between the Synod
and the excluded Presbyteries. Their sym-
pathies were with the New Side and while
they could not approve some of the high-
handed actions of their New Brunswick
brethren, they entered a protest in the
Synod of 1742, against the illegal manner in
which the New Brunswick brethren had
been excluded. They also protested against
the action of that Synod in declining to
consider the legality of the action of the
previous year; and also against the reflec-
tions which Synod had cast on the revival
81

82 The Presbyterians

work as carried on by the evangelists. No
attention was paid to these representations
of the Presbytery of New York.

Again the following year an effort was
made to induce the Synod to reconsider its
action. The overture was again rejected.
Two years passed without further effort to-
ward peace. Then the New York Presby-
tery asked for a Committee of Conference
with a view to harmonizing differences.
The Conference was held but the Synod in
substance reaffirmed all previous action.
Meantime the spread of the revival, the
preaching all the way from Virginia to Bos-
ton of evangelists who ignored all Synod-
ical rules, tended to deepen the lines which
had already been drawn. There was no
longer any talk of reunion and in Septem-
ber 1745, the Synod of New York was
formally erected — the New Brunswick party
and the Presbyteries of New York and of
New Castle meeting at Elizabethtown for
that purpose. In its personnel it was a

Missionaries and Patriots 83

strong body from the start. There were
Dickinson, Pemberton, Pierson and Burr
from New York; from New Brunswick
were the Tennents, Robert Treat, Charles
Beatty and others whose evangelistic labors
had abounded far and near, while from
New Castle, besides Charles Tennent were
Samuel Finley — later a president of Prince-
ton— and Samuel and John Blair, famous in
the subsequent history of the Church.

From the first the New Side gained on
the Old Side in numbers and strength.
This is easily accounted for. The Old Side
had depended for growth largely on immi-
gration from the old world. That had de-
cidedly fallen off. Those who came from
Scotland mostly favored the New Side.
More ministers came from New England.
They as a rule adhered to the views of the
New York brethren. Princeton also was
beginning to send out graduates who were
in sympathy with the New Brunswick men.
The trend of the accessions to both Synods

84 The Presbyterians

from 1745 to the reunion in 1758 is indi-
cated by the statement that twelve were
from Scotland, nine from Ireland, three
from England, nine from New York and
the Middle States, while nearly thirty were
from New England.

With the incoming of new elements to
both Synods there was developed an in-
creasing desire for a union of the two.
That of New York from 1745 to 1749 made
repeated proposals which, jealously re-
garded at first, became more and more ap-
pealing to the men on the other side. Of
course the protest by which New Bruns-
wick had been cut off remained as the great
obstacle. The Philadelphia Synod refused
to rescind it. Finally, however, a way
out was discovered without repudiat-
ing its own action. A declaration was
made that the protest was the action of in-
dividuals and not of the organic body and
so need not be rescinded.

A more formidable obstacle was in the

Missionaries and Patriots 85

debate concerning subscription. The Old
Side had demanded hteral subscription.
The New Side adhered to the language of
the Adopting Act and insisted only on sub-
scription to essentials. To them the atti-
tude of the Old Side seemed like lifting the
Confession to a level with the Word of God
and to this they would not for a moment
consent.

- In 1754-5 the two Synods were in such
friendly conference that the way for union
seemed to be prepared and in 1757 it was
agreed that the two Synods should the fol-
lowing year meet in the same place. The
Synod of New York therefore met in Phila-
delphia in 1758 where the other Synod was
already in session. The membership of
the Philadelphia Synod had been reduced to
twenty-two. The New York Synod num-
bered seventy. The plan of union which a
commission from the two bodies had pre-
viously matured was unanimously adopted.
It affirmed again the standards of the

86 The Presbyterians

Church and urged ministers to preach and
teach according to the form of sound words
and to avoid and oppose all errors; it dis-
avowed as a Synodical act the Protest of
1741 which had caused the division; it pro-
tected the rights of Presbyteries by requir-
ing Presbyterial authority for those who
would labor in its bounds; it favored re-
vivals of religion, while giving freedom for
differences of opinion as to particular facts,
and finally it was agreed "that all former
differences and disputes are laid aside and
buried." vThus a division of sixteen years'
duration was happily ended by concessions
without compromise, by a reaffirming of
Presbyterian doctrine and polity which
made the Church stronger than ever. The
new body was organized as the Synod of
New York and Philadelphia.
\,^^ From this union dates another period of
prosperity. As nearly as can be ascertained
there were at this time ninety-eight minis-
ters, about 200 churches, with 10,000 mem-

Missionaries and Patriots 87

bers. These numbers rapidly increased.
New Presbyteries were organized. New
regions were explored. The tide of emi-
gration had already crossed the Blue Ridge,
where in poverty and danger Presbyterian
communities were settled and were free
from the petty persecutions which the
Church of England and the Government
inflicted on those along the sea-board. In
1755 in Virginia the Presbytery of Hanover
was constituted. Out of its vast territory
were organized in 1785 the Presbytery of
Abingdon and in 1786 the Presbytery of
Lexington and Transylvania. The second
Presbytery of Philadelphia had been formed
in 1762; Carlisle, Pa., 1765; Lancaster, Pa.,
1765; Redstone, Pa., 1781. In New York
churches organized as Congregational in
Connecticut and others as Presbyterian in
New York were organized into the Dutchess
County Presbytery in 1766. In 1770 the
Presbytery of Hanover had so increased in
numbers that the churches belonging to it

88 The Presbyterians

in North Carolina were formed into the
Presbytery of Orange.

The Church now awaked to great mis-
sionary activity. The minutes of the Synod
every year make record of strenuous en-
deavors to advance the kingdom in the new
and needy fields. The country to the south
was rapidly opening for settlement. The
stamp of an earnest and aggressive Presby-
terianism was early put on Virginia by
Samuel Davies and other pioneer preachers.
And though that state was settled largely
by cavaliers there were some English Pres-
byterians among them and some Huguenot
settlements on the James River. There
were also Huguenot settlements in South
Carolina antedating the landing of the Pil-
grims on Plymouth Rock. But by the
middle of the eighteenth century both
North and South Carolina were filling up
with a fine class of people who called
for missionaries. The call was heeded to
the limited extent of the power of the still

Missionaries and Patriots 89

struggling Church. Where unable to fur-
nish a permanent supply the Synod directed
that students and licentiates should labor
for a few months in the most destitute
regions. And the ablest and busiest min-
isters frequently left their important charges
for months of itinerating up and down the
wilderness.
\ Missionary work among the Indians was
a feature of the years following reunion.
In 1759 John Brainard who had been one of
the earliest and most successful mission-
aries to the Indians reentered the Indian
service and took charge of the mission on
the reservation in southern New Jersey.
The Society in Scotland for the Propagation
of Christian Knowledge continued its aid.
In 1763 Mr. Samuel ^^corn, who by help
of this society had been engaged for a few
years in work among the Oneidas, visited
Great Britain to secure assistance for the
enlargement of the Indian mission and, as
the first Indian preacher who had appeared

go The Presbyterians

there, aroused such interest that a fund of
$50,000 was raised for this object. This
was an immense sum for those times.

In 1766 Charles Beatty and George Duf-
field, leaders of splendid gifts and deep
consecration, went as missionaries to the
frontier provinces. They pushed into the
Ohio wilderness and visited the Indians on
the Muskingum — 130 miles beyond Fort
Pitt. They found the Indians ready to re-
ceive the gospel. The Synod was so much
impressed by their report that steps were
taken looking to the establishing of perma-
nent work, but by reason of inadequate re-
sources the project was necessarily for the
time being abandoned.

In 1768 "the Synod taking under consid-
eration the deplorable condition of the In-
dian tribes — the natives of this land — who
sit in heathenish darkness and are perishing
for lack of knowledge " — appointed a com-
mittee to prepare a plan for missions among
them. The Synod had previously ordered

Missionaries and Patriots 91

a missionary collection in all the churches.
This was to secure laborers among the In-
dians and also to *' relieve the unhappy lot
of many in various parts of our land who
are brought up in ignorance; who on ac-
count of their poverty and scattered habita-
tions are unable without some assistance to
support the gospel ministry among them."

\, Thus — a generation before any organized
home mission work was undertaken — the
missionary spirit breathed in the councils
and actions of the struggling Church. The
projects however were checked by intrigues
of the French, the frequent hostile attitude
of the Indians, and finally by the approach
of the War of the Revolution.

\ The germs of the theological seminary
also appear as early as 1768. On August
17th of that year the famous Dr. John
Witherspoon was inaugurated president of
the College of New Jersey. A man of
great influence in Scotland, his coming to
America was an immense gain not only to

92 The Presbyterians

Presbyterianism of which he became one
of the most illustrious leaders, but to the
cause of the country for whose liberty he
was a most eloquent advocate. He was
appointed professor of divinity as well as
president of the college and also gave in-
struction in Hebrew to the young men
looking forward to the ministry. At this
time many young men were so looking for-
ward but were hindered from procuring
the necessary preparatory education by the
poverty with which most of them had to
contend. The Synod therefore addressed
itself to meet this need, and in 1771 a
scheme was proposed "for supporting
young men of piety and parts at learning
for the work of the ministry so that our
numerous vacancies may be supplied with
preachers of the gospel." Each vacant con-
gregation was to pay two pounds annually
into a common fund, and every minister
was to pay one pound, and all who were
willing were to have opportunity to make

Missionaries and Patriots 93

an annual subscription. Students who had
received aid were to preach for one year
after licensure in the vacancies within the
Presbytery. This was the beginning of the
^Board of Education.

The results of missionary work along the
frontiers had made evident the need of re-
ligious literature. In 1772 collections were
asked for this purpose. The books most
desired were, in addition to the Bible —
The Westminster Confession and Cate-
chisms, Doddridge's ''Rise and Progress,"
Alleine's "Alarm," Watts' "Songs for
Children," and "A Compassionate Address
to the Christian World." Committees were
appointed in New York and Philadelphia to
receive and disburse the fund, and each was
authorized to draw on the treasurer of Synod
for a sum not to exceed twenty pounds.
This was the beginning of the Board of
Publication.

In 1774 Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hopkins
proposed to the Synod the sending of two;

94 The Presbyterians

natives to Africa to do foreign missionary
work on the dark continent. There were
two negroes in the College of New Jersey
who were preparing for such a mission, and
it was hoped the young Synod might under-
take to send them. The Synod expressed
its approval of the plan and its willingness
to concur. An appeal for cooperation was
also sent to the society in Scotland. The
consummation of this noble project was
prevented by the outbreak of the war. But
the consideration of it by American and
Scotch Presbyterians shows that the cause
of foreign missions was already pressing on
the heart of the Church. Thus before the
Revolution the foundations of organized
home and foreign missions, of education
and publication had been laid in the coun-
sels and purposes of the Church.

The war for the freedom of the colonies
was now fast approaching. Presbyterians
took a strong hand in the conflict. They
were the earliest to take action looking to-

Missionaries and Patriots 95

ward independence. In Virginia the Pres-
byterians had long struggled for their rights
against the claims and aggressions of the
Church of England. So they were pre-
pared, ahead of all others, to take definite
action for civil as well as religious liberty.
Thus the Scotch-Irish met in council Jan-
uary 20th, 1775, at Abingdon, and addressed
the delegates of Virginia in these words:

"We explored our uncultivated wilder-
ness, bordering on many nations of sav-
ages, and surrounded by mountains almost
inaccessible to any but these savages; but
even to these remote regions the hand of
power hath pursued us, to strip us of that
liberty and property with which God, na-
ture, and the rights of humanity have vested
us. We are willing to contribute all in our
power, if applied to constitutionally, but
cannot think of submitting our liberty or
property to a venal British Parliament or a
corrupt ministry. We are deliberately and
resolutely determined never to surrender

96 The Presbyterians

any of our inestimable privileges to any
power upon earth but at the expense of
our lives. These are our real though un-
polished sentiments of liberty and loyalty
and in them we are resolved to live and
die " (Bancroft, in 1. c. IV., p. 100).

The Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg County,
N. C, in convention in May,'*i775, took still
stronger ground in the famous Mecklen-
burg Declaration. It was an advance copy
of the Declaration of Independence, as its
closing words plainly show:

'•Resolved, That we do hereby declare
ourselves a free and independent people;
are, and of a right ought to be, a sovereign
and self-governing association, under the
control of no power other than that of our
God and the general government of the Con-
gress; to the maintenance of which we
solemnly pledge to each other our mutual
cooperation and our lives, our fortunes and
our most sacred honor " (W. P. Breed,
Presbyterians and the Revolution).

Missionaries and Patriots 97

Archibald Alexander, a Presbyterian elder,
was the presiding officer of this convention
— Ephraim Brevard another elder and a
graduate of Princeton was the secretary.
Its membership was almost entirely Presby-
terian. Mr. Bancroft therefore said justly:
"The first voice publicly raised in America
to dissolve all connection with Great Britain
came not from the Puritans of New Eng-
land nor the Dutch of New York nor the
planters of Virginia but from the Scotch-
Irish Presbyterians."

Referring to those Presbyterians of the
valleys and mountains of Virginia and
North Carolina, Washington declared that
if all his plans became overturned and but a
single standard was left he would plant it
upon the Blue Ridge, and making that his
Thermopylae would rally around him the
patriots of the valley and there lay the foun-
dations of a new republic.

Indeed the Scotch and Scotch-Irish were
the very sinew of the movement for Inde-

98 The Presbyterians

pendence. To New Jersey the Scotch gave
her war governor, William Livingstone;
and to Virginia, Patrick Henry, who as
Jefferson once said to Webster " was before
us all in maintaining the spirit of the revo-
lution." They gave to the army such men
as Knox, Sullivan and Stark of New Eng-
land; Clinton from New York; Gen. Robert
Montgomery who fell at Quebec; brave
Anthony Wayne, the hero of Stony Point;
Col. John Eager Howard of Maryland, who
saved the day at the battle of Cowpens;
and Col. William Campbell, the hero of
King's Mountain. The Declaration of In-
dependence in the state department at
Washington is in the handwriting of a
Scotchman, Charles Thomson, the secre-
tary of Congress. It is said to have been
first printed by Thomas Dunlap, another
Scotch-Irishman, while a third fellow-
countryman, Captain John Nixon, was the
first to read it to the people. So are justi-
fied the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

Missionaries and Patriots 99

**The backwoodsmen were Americans
by birth and parentage and of mixed race;
but the dominant strain in their blood was
that of the Presbyterian Irish— the Scotch-
Irish as they were often called. Full credit
has been awarded the Roundhead and the
Cavalier for their leadership in our history;
nor have we been altogether blind to the
deeds of the Hollander and the Huguenot;
but it is doubtful if we have wholly realized
the importance of the part played by that
stern and virile people, the Irish whose
preachers taught the creed of Knox and
Calvin. These Irish representatives of the
Covenanters were in the west almost what
the Puritans were in the northeast, and
more than the Cavaliers were in the south.
Mingled with the descendants of many
other races, they nevertheless formed the
kernel of the distinctively and intensely
American stock who were the pioneers of
our people in their march westward, the
vanguard of the army of fighting settlers

100 The Presbyterians

who with axe and rifle won their way from
the AUeghanies to the Rio Grande and the
Pacific."'

During the war only two Presbyterian
ministers went over to the British. One of
these was deposed from the ministry — the
other was suspended. Dr. Inglis, the Tory
rector of Trinity Church, wrote in 1776, "I
do not know one Presbyterian minister
nor have I been able after strict inquiry to
hear of any who did not by preaching and
every effort in their power promote all the
efforts of the Continental Congress, how-
ever extravagant." Nor were Presbyterian
elders less active and faithful. From a
careful statement by Dr. Thomas Smythe
it appears that General Morgan, the com-
mander at Cowpens, and General Pickens
who made the plan of the battle were both
Presbyterian elders. At King's Mountain
Colonel Campbell, Col. James Williams,
Colonel Cleaveland, Colonel Shelby, Col-
onel Sevier, were all Presbyterian elders

Missionaries and Patriots loi

and the body of their troops was Presby-
terian.

It is not strange therefore that a Church
with such a record should have had much
influence in shaping the national Constitu-
tion, even as it was first in recognizing and
aiding the cause of freedom. The Conven-
tion for the adoption of the national consti-
tution was in session in Philadelphia at the
time that the first General Assembly met
there. Some members of the Assembly
were members of the Convention. ^^ John
Witherspoon was a leading and guiding
spirit in both. And while it is as easy as
unwise to try to trace an exact paral-
lel between the national and the Pres-
byterian constitutions we have seen that
there is in their respective series of courts
enough at least to remind us that they
sprang from similar conditions and were
formed by men who had just stood side by
side in a great struggle for constitutional
liberty. ** The ecclesiastical pohty of the

lo2 The Presbyterians

Presbyterian Churches influenced the gov-
ernment of the state and the government
of the American Presbyterian Churches
was in no slight degree assimilated to the
civil government of the country " (Briggs'
American Presbyterianism, p. 354).

How thoroughly loyal to the cause of
liberty was the Presbyterian Church is evi-
dent from the action of the Synod of New
York and Philadelphia at the close of the
war.

"We cannot help congratulating you on
the general and almost universal attachment
of the Presbyterian body to the cause of
liberty and the rights of mankind. This
has been visible in their conduct, and has
been confessed by the complaints and re-
sentment of the common enemy. Such a
circumstance ought not only to afford us
satisfaction on the review as bringing
credit to the body in general, but to in-
crease our gratitude to God, for the happy
issue of the war. Had it been unsuccess-

Missionaries and Patriots 103

ful, we must have drunk deeply of the
cup of suffering. Our burnt and wasted
churches, and our plundered dwellings, in
such places as fell under the power of our
adversaries, are but an earnest of what we
must have suffered had they finally pre-
vailed. The Synod, therefore, request you
to render thanks to Almighty God, for all
his mercies, spiritual and temporal, and in
a particular manner for establishing the
Independence of the United States of
America."

CHAPTER VI

OVER THE MOUNTAINS

Before the Revolutionary War Presbyte-

rianism had made considerable progress in

the South and West. The Carolinas were

early settled by a sturdy Scotch-Irish and

Huguenot stock, as stated in the foregoing

chapter. As early as 1658 a small company

of emigrants of Presbyterian antecedents

had settled around Cape Fear. Little is

known of their history save that they lived

in poverty and great hardships. In 1729

Scotch immigrants were attracted to the

same region. Soon after this the interests

of vital religion in all that region were

greatly strengthened by the visit and

preaching of Whitefield. It was, however,

many years before the scattered colonies
104

* Over the Mountains 105

secured the stated means of grace. Not till
after the middle of the century did a mis-
sionary come to live among them. This
missionary was James Campbell, from
Pennsylvania, who preached for years with
true pioneer spirit to the settlements along
the Cape Fear River.

Attention was now called to the spiritual
destitution of the Carolinas and more mis-
sionaries were sent out from Pennsylvania
and Virginia. Hugh McAden, a graduate
of Nassau Hall, came in 1755 and for ten
years evangelized among the scattered
settlers from Virginia to South Carolina.
He was the means of planting a number of
churches and securing other ministers. Al-
exander Craighead, a warm friend of
Whitefield and an earnest though somewhat
eccentric preacher and a daring explorer,
pushed on to the western frontiers of Vir-
ginia. Exposed to countless perils of the
wilderness and of savages he courageously
kept his way. Later we find him in west-

io6 The Presbyterians

ern North Carolina — the first missionary of
a region so famous alike in religion and
patriotic movements. Here his ministry
closed, but not till he had sowed seeds of
truth which afterward in battles of the
Revolution bore the fruit of Christian pa-
triotism. Henry Patillo is another name
worthy to be starred in the history of the
Carolinas. For thirty-six years he preached
with apostolic fervor and like the great
apostle supported himself largely by the
labors of his own hands. He became dis-
tinguished alike in the councils of Church
and State. He was a member of the first
Provincial Congress of North Carolina and
was chairman of the Committee on ''Na-
tional Federation." A large and generous
nature, with boundless capacity for self-
sacrifice, originality of genius and unusual
intellectual powers, his name will ever be
associated with the state to which he gave
such long and notable service.
During the latter half of the century the

Over the Mountains 107

immigration to the Carolinas was numerous
and of a good type. Again it was largely
Scotch and hish. More missionaries were
called for. The Synod of New York and
Philadelphia was not unmindful of the
claims of the rapidly developing region.
Many of the best men of the Synod visited
those states on longer or shorter missionary
tours. William Tennent, Jr., Nathan Her,
George Duffield, Alexander McWhorter and
many others gathered congregations and
organized churches. The need of Presby-
terial organization becoming apparent, a
petition was presented to the Presbytery of
Hanover in Virginia asking that a Presby-
tery be constituted in the Carolinas. In
1770 seven ministers and the churches
under their care were set off as the Presby-
tery of Orange and comprising the states of
North and South Carolina.

Among the early ministers of the new
Presbytery, several Pennsylvanians are
worthy of special mention. The first min-

lo8 The Presbyterians

ister ordained by the Presbytery was
Thomas Reese, a native of Pennsylvania
and a graduate of Princeton. His pastorate
in South Carolina was eminently success-
ful. He was a distinguished scholar.

A man more famous was James Hall
who was licensed in 1776, and who during
a long ministry had much to do with shap-
ing the religious history of the Carolinas.
He was a native of Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
and of Scotch-Irish descent. He was trained
for the ministry by Dr. Witherspoon.
After graduation he returned to North Caro-
lina and gave himself with boundless en-
thusiasm to the pioneer work. From every
side came calls for his services. Frequent
revivals blessed his labors. For forty years
he was a burning and shining light — a
power for righteousness through a wide
region of country.

Samuel Eusebius McCorkle was another
native of the Quaker State, who during a
fruitful ministry of thirty-five years found

Over the Mountains 109

time to establish and conduct a classical
school. This educational work was recog-
nized as in the new conditions an essential
part of the pastor's labors and many paro-
chial schools thus begun grew in later years
into academies and colleges.

Under the labors of the men now named
and many others of similar devotion the
Church grew and extended. The Presby-
tery of Orange reached into Tennessee.
With the columns of emigration over the
mountains and down the valleys of western
North Carolina went Charles Cummins,
Hezekiah Balch, Samuel Houston and kin-
dred spirits giving the stamp of Christian
truth and life to the new communities rap-
idly forming along the French Broad and
the Tennessee Rivers.

Speaking of the settlement of the South-
west, Mr. Roosevelt in the ''Winning of
the West," says:

''The way in which the southern part of
our western country— that is, all the land

110 The Presbyterians

south of the Ohio, and from thence on to
the Rio Grande and the Pacific — was won
and settled, stands quite alone. . . . The
Southwest, including therein what was
once called simply the West, and afterward
the Middle West, was won by the people
themselves, acting as individuals or as
groups of individuals, who hewed out their
own fortunes in advance of any govern-
mental action. . . .

"All of our territory lying beyond the
Alleghanies, north and south, was first
won for us by the southwesterners, fight-
ing for their own land. The northern part
was afterward filled up by the thrifty,
vigorous men of the Northeast, whose sons
became the real rulers as well as the pre-
servers of the Union; but these settlements
of northerners were rendered possible only
by the deeds of the nation as a whole.
They entered on land that the southerners
had won, and they were kept there by the
strong arm of the Federal Government;

Over the Mountains 1 1 1

whereas the southerners owed most of
their victories only to themselves."

About the same time another line of emi-
gration moved westward across the state
of Pennsylvania and over the Alleghany
Mountains. Up to 1762 France had claimed
the entire country west of the mountains.
In that year, however, by treaty England
came into peaceable possession of all the
territory east of the Mississippi River. Set-
tlers were attracted to the unexplored
wilderness. In a few years thousands
had made their homes among the Indian
tribes in western Pennsylvania and eastern
Ohio. Most of these were Presbyterian.
An appeal came to the Synod ''that mis-
sionaries might be sent to the distressed
frontier inhabitants, report their distress,
learn what new congregations were form-
ing, what was necessary to promote the
spread of the gospel among them and dis-
cover what opportunities there might be of
missionary work among the Indian tribes."

1 1 2 The Presbyterians

Two missionaries were appointed— Charles
Beatty and John Brainerd, but the breaking
out of a terrible Indian war incited by the
French, who while keeping their treaty in
letter broke it in spirit, put an end for the
time to all missionary work. The follow-
ing year, however, (1776) the Indians hav-
ing been driven into Ohio, the mission was
undertaken and Mr. Beatty and Mr. Duf-
field crossed the Alleghanies and after hold-
ing services at Fort Pitt they pushed on
among savages — whether hostile or friendly
they knew not — till they came to the Mus-
kingum "one hundred and thirty miles be-
yond Fort Pitt." They found the Indians
disposed to listen to their message and
plans were made to send additional mis-
sionaries the following year. For some
reason these plans were not carried out.
But the knowledge obtained on this tour
stimulated the Church to earnest efforts
to establish permanent missions over the
mountains. Thence until the Revolution-

Over the Mountains 113

ary War annual visits were made to the
frontier settlements. The people were
found in circumstances of poverty and
distress. The fear of savages haunted
them continually and not without cause.
Their way of living was only a little better
than that of the Indians by whom they
were surrounded and threatened. The his-
tory of the **01d Redstone Presbytery"
tells how in "nine cases out of ten a
blanket or coverlet served as a substitute
for a great coat in winter weather — how
deer-skin was a substitute for cloth for men
and boys — how in their food potatoes and
pumpkins served for bread and bear's oil
for butter — how the furniture of the rude
log cabin was little in advance of that of
the wigwam. But beneath this coarse ex-
terior," the record goes on to say, "beat
hearts as true to the cause of freedom, in-
telligence, morals and religion as any in the
world."
The first Presbytery organized west of

1 14 The Presbyterians

^ the Alleghanies was the Presbytery of Red-
stone. It had a remarkable personality and
did a remarkable work. With the increas-
ing companies of pioneers who before and
during the war went across the mountains,
went an illustrious little band of mission-
aries. The first settled minister was James
Powers— a graduate of Princeton and a li-
centiate of the New Castle Presbytery. He
began his missionary labors in Virginia, but
in 1774 he crossed the mountains and spent
the summer in tours among the inhabitants
scattered along the Youghiogheny and Alle-
gheny Rivers. In 1776 he took his family
to the field of his labors and for several
years lived the perilous and self-sacrificing
life of an itinerant preacher. In 1779 he
became pastor of the Sewickley and Mount
Pleasant congregations. His influence was
extensive and powerful.

One of the bravest and most famous of all
pioneers was the Rev. John McMillan who
went to western Pennsylvania in 1776. He

Over the Mountains 115

too was a Princeton graduate. It is prob-
able no one of all the early missionaries ex-
erted an influence so commanding and
widespread, or did so much foundation-
building as this humble and godly minister.
When he came to the cabin that was to be
his home he found it without floor, roof
or chimney. He had neither bedstead,
table, chairs, stool nor bucket. Two boxes
served for a table and two kegs for seats.
His family frequently had no bread for
weeks; potatoes and pumpkins served in-
stead. In addition their lives were full of
dangers. The Indians were around them on
every side and were constantly being in-
cited by the. French to make depredations
on the settlers. In such circumstances this
courageous missionary lived the early years
of his ministry and did a work which was
to tell on the centuries to come. When he
left the east his instructor and friend Dr.
Robert Smith, urged him **to look out
some pious young men and educate them

1 i6 The Presbyterians

for the ministry." He therefore devoted a
portion of his time to the training of young
men who afterward became his co-presby-
ters in the first western Presbytery. Can-
onsburg Academy, afterward Jefferson Col-
lege, was the outgrowth of his labors and
plans. But he was more than an educator.
He was a preacher of such pungency and
power that revivals were of frequent oc-
currence and churches were organized and
strengthened on every hand.

Others soon came to his help. One of
these was Thaddeus Dod, of Newark, N. J.
After a brief ministry in Virginia and Mary-
land, he moved over the mountains and
soon began forming congregations. In
1 781 he put up a log academy. He was
specially fitted to be a teacher. In 1789 he
was called to take charge of Washington
Academy which in 1806 developed into
Washington College. A man of fine cul-
ture, of classical taste and poetic imagina-
tion, he was beloved by all who knew him.

Over the Mountains 117

and for sixteen years was the honored in-
strument in laying broad and deep founda-
tions of education and religion.

Another to join the pioneer band in 1779
was Joseph Smith. He was called to the
united congregations of Buffalo and Cross
Creek, and for many years his ministry was
almost a continuous revival. To a mind
well trained he added an unction and elo-
quence of manner that made him one of the
most effective preachers of his generation.
" He would often rise to an almost super-
natural and unearthly grandeur completely
extinguishing in his hearers all conscious-
ness of time and place" (Old Redstone,
p. 67).

Like the other pioneer missionaries he
made the training of young men for the
ministry a prime concern. Having no
building for school purposes, with his
wife's consent he turned the family kitchen
into a schoolhouse and taught a Latin
school from which several eminent minis-

ii8 The Presbyterians

ters graduated. Connected with this school
was an education society, for here the
women of neighboring congregations as-
sembled to make clothing for the young
men who were pursuing their studies.

Out of such strenuous conditions grew
the first Presbytery among the mountains
in 1 78 1. It consisted of the ministers
named and was increased during the next
year by James Dunlap, also a Princeton
man, and John Clark from the Presbytery
of New Castle. The men who thus laid the
foundations beyond the Alleghanies account
for the virile character that has ever marked
the churches of that region. They were
providentially fitted for their place and
time, and nobly did they fill up the meas-
ure of an opportunity whose greatness ap-
peared only in subsequent generations.

CHAPTER VII

AN ERA OF MISSIONS

During the Revolutionary War the
churches suffered severely, both in prop-
erty and life. In many places church work
was wholly interrupted. Congregations
were scattered. Ministers were driven
away or silenced. About fifty Presbyterian
church buildings were destroyed. Thus
while the Church kept her faith with her
country and made a record for patriotic de-
votion that adds new lustre to her annals it
was at the cost which war always entails.
But at the end of the great conflict there
was everywhere a revival of church life.
The people gathered joyfully once more
around the altars whence they had been

driven and that period of progress began
119

120 The Presbyterians

which makes the nineteenth century illus-
trious as an era of Christian triumph. Mis-
sionaries pushed to the frontiers. New
settlements were founded from the forests
of central New York to the pine groves of
the Carolinas.

So rapid had been the extension that as
early as 1785 the question of the union of
the several Synods in a General Assembly
was earnestly considered. A bond of union
between the widely scattered Synods was
an increasing necessity. To meet this
necessity the sixteen Presbyteries were re-
arranged and grouped in four Synods, viz.,
New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia,
Virginia and the Carolinas. There were at
this time 177 ministers and 431 churches.

The first General Assembly met in Phila-
delphia in 1789. Dr. Witherspoon preached
the opening sermon and Dr. John Rodgers
of New York was chosen Moderator. The
first congress of the United States was then
in session in New York. In harmony with

An Era of Missions 12 1

the patriotic spirit which the Presbyterian
Church had manifested during the war one
of the first acts of the General Assembly
was to issue an address to Washington.
Dr. Witherspoon prepared it. Digni(ied,
patriotic and Christian it may well serve as
a model of the attitude of the Church to-
ward the nation. After referring to his
military career and his unselfish surrender
to the popular will in again assuming public
responsibility it says: ** But we derive a
presage even more flattering from the piety
of your character. Public virtue is the most
certain means of public felicity, and religion
is the surest basis of virtue. We therefore
esteem it a peculiar happiness to behold in
our chief magistrate a steady, uniform,
avowed friend of the Christian religion;
who has commenced his administration in
rational and exalted sentiments of piety,
and who in his private conduct adorns the
doctrines of the gospel of Christ, and, on
the most public and solemn occasions, de-

122 The Presbyterians

voutly acknowledges the government of
Divine Providence.

"The example of distinguished charac-
ters will ever possess a powerful and ex-
tensive influence on the public mind; and
when we see in such a conspicuous station
the amiable example of piety to God, of
benevolence to men, and of a pure and
virtuous patriotism, we naturally hope that
it will diffuse its influence, and that, even-
tually, the most happy consequences will
result from it. To the force of imitation
we will endeavor to add the wholesome in-
structions of religion. We shall consider
ourselves as doing an acceptable service to
God, in our profession, when we contribute
to render men sober, honest, and indus-
trious citizens and the obedient subjects of
a lawful government. In these pious labors
we hope to imitate the most worthy of our
brethren of other Christian denominations,
and to be imitated by them; assured that if
we can, by mutual and generous emulation,

An Era of Missions 123

promote truth and virtue, we shall render a
great and important service to the republic,
shall receive encouragement from every
wise and good citizen, and above all, meet
the approbation of our Divine Master.

" We pray Almighty God to have you al-
ways in his holy keeping. May he prolong
your valuable life, an ornament and a bless-
ing to your country, and at last bestow on
you the glorious reward of a faithful
servant."

Washington's reply was worthy of him
and of the occasion. Expressing his satis-
faction over the approbation of his conduct,
he adds: "While I reiterate the professions
of my dependence upon Heaven as the
source of all public and private blessings, I
will observe, that the general prevalence of
piety, philanthropy, honesty, industry, and
economy seems, in the ordinary course of
human affairs, particularly necessary for
advancing and confirming the happiness of
our country. While all men within our

124 The Presbyterians

territories are protected in worshipping the
Deity according to the dictates of their con-
sciences, it is rationally to be expected from
them in return that they will all be emulous
of evincing the sincerity of their prof essions
by the innocence of their lives and the
benevolence of their actions. For no man
who is profligate in his morals, or a bad
member of the civil community, can pos-
sibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his
own religious society."

The Church was now fully organized for
its ^real ^ork, and'. to it addressed itself as
if with some conception of the vastness of
its undertaking. The cause of missions
therefore was its early and constant care.
It realized that in a new country, rapidly
expanding its borders, the mission of the
Church is missions. The first Committee
on Bills and Overtures recommended:
"That the state of the frontier settlements
should be taken into consideration and mis-
sionaries should be sent to them." An an-

I

An Era of Missions 125

nual collection was also ordered in all the
churches "for defraying the necessary ex-
penses of the missions."

At the next meeting of the Assembly a
committee was appointed "to prepare cer-
tain directions necessary for the missionaries
of the Assembly in fulfilling the design of
their mission and to specify the compensa-
tion that it would be proper to make for
their services." The work was beginning to
take shape. The same year Nathan Her and
Joseph Hart were appointed missionaries to
the frontier. They reported to the next
Assembly that they had spent three months
in the business assigned them beginning at
Middletown and going as far as theOneidas
and Cayugas in central New York. In
Pennsylvania they itinerated in the Lacka-
wanna valley, visiting the settlements at
Pittston, Wilkesbarre and Lackawanna.
They reported a great increase of popu-
lation in central New York and recom-
mended that a missionary be sent to that

126 The Presbyterians

region, "in order tliat the hopes of the
pioneers may be raised, the ignorant may
be instructed and that the foundation of
gospel principles may be laid in this exten-
sive and growing country in such a manner
that discipline may be exercised regularly
therein."

The Assembly in 1794 adopted a circular
addressed to the inhabitants visited by the
missionaries. It lays stress on the duty of
maintaining friendly and cooperative rela-
tions with other denominations. It is in
these words: "As our aim has not been to
proselyte from other communions to our
own denomination we have charged our
missionaries to avoid all doubtful disputa-
tions, to abstain from unfriendly censures
or reflections on other religious persuasions
and adhering strictly to the great doctrines
of our holy religion which influence the
heart and life in the ways of godliness to
follow after the things that make for peace
and general edification."

An Era of Missions 127

The Church is thus on record at the be-
ginning of her career in this country as
favoring brotherly relations with all Chris-
tians of whatever name. In this connection
it is interesting to observe the close rela-
tions early established and long maintained
between the General Assembly and the
General Association of Connecticut. The
Rev. Methuselah Baldwin was in 1799
directed to spend three months or more in
the vicinity of Onondago, "in connection
with Mr. Williston, a missionary from the
General Association of Connecticut."

The missionary relations of the Presby-
terian and Congregational churches, took
definite shape in 1801 when regulations
promotive of harmony and cooperation
were adopted by the Assembly. Mission-
aries are enjoined **to promote a spirit of
accommodation between those inhabitants
of the new settlements who hold the Pres-
byterian and those who hold the Congrega-
tional form of Church Government," This

128 The Presbyterians

action was the first draft of **The Plan of
Union " which went into effect soon after
and which continued for more than a gen-
eration as a happy arrangement for advanc-
ing the gospel in the rapidly developing
parts of the country. It provided in brief
that Congregational churches might settle
Presbyterian ministers and the reverse, and
that if a congregation consisted partly of
Congregationalists and partly of Presbyte-
rians this fact should be no obstacle to their
uniting in one Church and settling a min-
ister, and that in such case a standing com-
mittee of the communicants should be the
spiritual leaders of the congregation.

The nineteenth century opened on gen-
eral demoralization and abounding infidel-
ity. Dueling was common, drunkenness
on public occasions prevalent, atheistical
clubs were formed among students. In
1798 the General Assembly said: **We
perceive with pain and fearful apprehen-
sion a general dereliction of religious prin-

An Era of Missions 129

ciple and practice among our fellow-citi-
zens, a visible and prevailing impiety and
contempt for the laws and institutions of
religion and an abounding infidelity which
tends to atheism itself." To meet this sad
condition God imbued his Church won-
derfully with the spirit of missions and re-
vivals.

How thoroughly the Church had at this
time a true missionary spirit was illustrated
by an action of the Assembly of 1800, when
among objects named for special considera-
tion were, *'The gospelizing of the Indians
on the frontiers of our country, the instruc-
tion of negroes, the poor and those who
are destitute of the means of grace in vari-
ous parts of this extensive country." In
view of the fact that there was not a suffi-
cient number of ministers to meet the needs
of these classes an order of men under the
character of catechists was provided from
among men of piety and good sense but
without a liberal education who might "in-

Nv

130 The Presbyterians

struct the Indians, the black people and
other persons unacquainted with the prin-
ciples of our holy religion."

The same Assembly took steps to raise a
permanent fund for missionary work. It
was recommended that money contributed
for missions should be regarded as a capital
stock to be invested in secure and perma-
nent funds for missionary purposes; ''that
the proceeds of it should be employed in
propagating the Gospel among the Indians,
in instructing the black people and purchas-
ing pious books to be distributed among
the poor or in maintaining, when the As-
sembly shall think themselves competent to
the object, theological schools and for such
other pious and benevolent purposes as may
hereafter be deemed expedient." A very
broad scheme of beneficence in which may
readily be found the germ of the full ecclesi-
astical machinery so soon to be developed.

The fully organized home mission work
of the Church dates fronV 1802. In view of

An Era of Missions 131

the increasing demand for missionaries
along the western spreading frontier it was
agreed that there should be a ''Standing
Committee on Missions " consisting of four
clergymen and three laymen whose duty it
should be to collect information relative to
missions, to designate places where mission-
aries should be employed, to nominate suit-
able persons to the Assembly, and generally
to transact the missionary business of the
Church." This committee had practically
the powers of a missionary board. It pur-
sued its work vigorously — north, west and
south. How close to the border was the
missionary field at that time is illustrated by
the fact that the missionaries sent out that
year went to Norfolk, Va., to the city of
Washington, to the Genesee and Sparta in
Ontario County in New York. But there
was also an out-reaching to the adventur-
ous pioneers who had buried themselves in
the western wilderness as is manifest from
the fact that some of the missionaries were

132 The Presbyterians

sent as far as the "Mississippi Territory."
A few years later the interesting statement
is made "that Mr. James Hoge a licentiate
of the Presbytery of Lexington shall serve
as a missionary for six months in the state
of Ohio and the Natchez district," — a pretty
large commission for one lone young man,
but it marks the beginning of a service that
was to tell mightily on the regeneration of
Ohio and "the regions beyond."

Long before this organized work, indeed
as early as 1777, the Rev. Samuel Doak
organized the first Presbyterian Church
at Salem, Tenn., and established Washing-
ton College, the first college south of the
Alleghanies. "He came from New Jersey
and had been educated in Princeton. Pos-
sessed of the vigorous energy that marks
the true pioneer spirit, he determined to
cast in his lot with the frontier folk. He
walked through Maryland and Virginia,
driving before him an old * flee-bitten gray '
horse, loaded with a sackful of books;

An Era of Missions 133

crossed the Alleghanies, and came down
along blazed trails to the Holston settle-
ments. The hardy people among whom
he took up his abode were able to appreci-
ate his learning and religion as much as
they admired his adventurous and indom-
itable temper; and the stern, hard, God-
fearing man became a most powerful in-
fluence for good throughout the whole
formative period of the southwest" (" The
Winning of the West ").

The westward movement had become
so decided by 1806 that missionaries were
sent to the ''Indiana Territory" and to the
Cherokee Indians of Tennessee. The Rev.
Gideon Blackburn^ destined to become one
of the home missionary heroes of the south-
west, was employed for two months for
missionary service among those Indians and
a fund of §500 was appropriated for an
Indian school founded by him. Another
name to be associated with that of Black-
burn in the early religious life of Tennessee

134 The Presbyterians

is that of the Rev. John Doak. He had his
first commission in 1812 in these quaint
words: "A missionary for six weeks com-
mencing his route at Fincastle and proceed-
ing thence on missionary ground to Greene-
ville in East Tennessee."

A general revival of missionary interest
characterized the opening years of the new
century. The Synod of Pittsburg was or-
ganized in 1802 — primarily as a missionary
body, assuming the name of "The Western
Missionary Society." Its great aim was to
Christianize the Indians and to supply
Gospel privileges to the settlers now filling
up the Ohio Territory.

The newly formed Synod of Kentucky in
1803 appealed to the Assembly for help,
declaring that the missionary field on their
frontier was so "extensive and promising
that the Synod find themselves inadequate
to the demand." The Synod of the Caro-
linas was similarly exercised. It strug-
gled bravely on until in 1812 the amount

An Era of Missions 135

of mission work so far exceeded their
ability that it was resigned to the care of
the Assembly. The growth of the country
and the missionary spirit is illustrated by
the fact that in 1803 the number of mission-
aries sent out by the Assembly was only
five; in 1807 it had risen to fifteen; had
grown to forty in 181 1 and to over fifty in
1814 exclusive of those sent out by Synods
and Presbyteries.

As often in the history of the Church, so
now the advance in missions was explained
by general and powerful revivals of re-
ligion. The movement began in Kentucky
and, marred though it was by many ex-
travagances and much fanaticism, it af-
fected mightily and for good the religious
life of the times. The people gathered
from large districts of country, brought
with them their tents and provisions and
remained for days or weeks engaged almost
continuously in religious exercises. Thus
originated the camp meetings which have

136 The Presbyterians

been so conspicuous a phase of evangel-
istic effort. The revivals continued for
several years. In 1801 the movement had
spread up and down the rivers wherever
there were settlements and the subject of
religion was the one theme — not for discus-
sion but for action. The scene at Cane
Ridge in Bourbon County, is illustrative of
many. It is said to have been awful be-
yond description. It was estimated that
twenty thousand people had gathered.
Seven ministers would be preaching at once
to as many congregations. The tides of
emotion were uncontrollable. Hundreds
would fall at a sentence and cry for mercy.
The shouts and cries sometimes stopped
the preacher. "At one time," a spectator
writing of the scene says, "\ saw at least
five hundred swept down in a moment as
if a battery of a thousand guns had been
opened upon them and then immediately
followed shrieks and shouts that rent the
very heavens. My hair rose upon my head,

An Era of Missions 137

my whole frame trembled, the blood ran
cold in my veins and I fled for the woods."
This was not the testimony of an enthu-
siast but one who said he "would not
have fallen to the ground for the whole
state of Kentucky."

The extreme form of this great revival,
involving fanaticism, doctrinal vagaries
and physical manifestations, was confined
largely to Kentucky, but the spirit of it
went abroad through the nation. It spread
north and east. Its fires began to light up
western and central New York, were pres-
ently felt in western Pennsylvania and went
over the mountains into Virginia and the
Carolinas. The revival spirit continued for
a full decade. Everywhere churches were
quickened, dead churches brought to life
again and often whole communities trans-
formed. There were excesses indeed which
brought reactions. The Assembly at times
felt called on to sound a note of warning
against false doctrines and extravagant

138 The Presbyterians

methods. But these things were but as
eddies along the banks. The great current
moved on with strength and blessing. In
four years, from 1809 to 18 13, the member-
ship of the church had increased nearly
twenty-five per cent.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was
an indirect result of the powerful revival in
Kentucky. It came about through a de-
mand for an increase in the number of
ministers to meet the new opportunities
which the revival spirit had opened through-
out the southern mountains. The church
could not furnish the needed supply of edu-
cated men. Uneducated men were pressed
into the service. They were zealous but
often ill-balanced. Excesses in methods
and unsoundness in doctrine appeared on
every side. The Synod of Kentucky ap-
pealed to the Assembly for counsel. The
Synod however was divided as to the best
course to pursue. So was the Assembly.
On the one hand was a desire to maintain

An Era of Missions 139

strict ecclesiastical procedure, while at the
same time favoring the revival. On the
other hand, was the imperative need of
more preachers and the desire to subordi-
nate education and orthodoxy to the urgent
demands which the revivals had made. The
discussions in Synod and Assembly went on
with increasing heat from 1804 to 181 4.

In addition to the question of allowing the
ordination of uneducated men arose the
question of a strict or lax adoption of the
Confession — many of those strenuous for
the new methods claiming that the Confes-
sion tended to "fatalism." The Presby-
tery of Cumberland was the storm centre.
In 1805 the Synod severely criticized the
actions of that Presbytery and appointed a
commission to confer with it touching the
matters at issue between them. The com-
mission rendered a decision adverse to the
Presbytery, charging it with receiving young
men for the ministry "not only illiterate
but erroneous in sentiment."

140 The Presbyterians

During the next four years there was a
continuous revival. The Presbytery's com-
plaint became more acute. All efforts at
reconciliation failed. In 1806 the Synod
formally dissolved the Cumberland Presby-
tery. For a few years there was corre-
spondence between the Assembly and the
dissolved Presbytery — but without avail.
In February, 18 10, the independent Cumber-
land Presbytery was organized. This was
the origin of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church. In three years and a half the
Presbytery had grown to three Presbyteries
which constituted the Cumberland Synod.
Since then it has had continuous growth
and is now a thoroughly organized denomi-
nation with 118 presbyteries, 2,944 congre-
gations, 1,595 rninisters, and is not only
doing its own work in the southern states
but is carrying on a large home and foreign
mission work.

In the southern states there has been
formed a Colored Cumberland Presbyterian

An Era of Missions 141

Church, but the number of ministers and
church members is small.

Theologically the Cumberland Church is
a modified Calvinism, retaining the prin-
cipal elements of the Calvinistic system but
rejecting such doctrines as a limited atone-
ment and special grace. The fraternity be-
tween the Presbyterian and the Cumberland
Churches is illustrated by the correspond-
ence between their Assemblies and by their
frequent cooperation on mission fields.
\/ About this time the slavery question
which was ultimately to divide the Church
again came fully to the front. It had
claimed the attention of the Synod of New
York and Pennsylvania as early as 1787.
That Synod adopted a paper strongly advo-
cating the education of slaves for their own
sakes and for the good of the state and
urged such " prudent methods as would
procure eventually the final abolition of
slavery." But in 181 5 the subject began to
assume menacing proportions. The Synod

142 The Presbyterians

of Ohio asked for a deliverance on the buy-
ing and selling of slaves. Certain elders
who had scruples about owning slaves
also petitioned the Assembly. The report
adopted was a strong anti-slavery docu-
ment. It expressed regret over the exist-
ence of slavery in the United States, urged
the duty of educating slaves and cherished
the hope of emancipation. The report
further declared the buying and selling of
slaves "inconsistent with the spirit of the
gospel."

The period now under consideration,
viz., from 1802 to 18 16, was one of progress
by enthusiasm and organization. Therefore
notwithstanding the deleterious influences
resulting from the war and the agitations
and divisions incident to the revival fanati-
cism in Kentucky, the growth of the Church
during this period was both rapid and sub-
stantial. In the east there were organized
local and general societies for the distribu-
tion of the Bible and the circulation of re-

An Era of Missions 143

ligious literature. Missionary societies were
also increased. In New England the Mas-
sachusetts and Connecticut Home Mission-
ary Societies developed much activity and
the latter by union with the Committee on
Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church
penetrated western New York and Ohio.
In Pittsburg the western Missionary So-
ciety pushed its work among the settlers in
the Old Northwest and to the Indians. In
1810 a Sabbath school was established in
New Brunswick, N. J., "for the gratuitous
instruction of poor children in morals and re-
ligious truth." So important was this step
regarded that the Assembly of 181 1 made
grateful mention of the significant fact.

The roll of churches now grew fast. In
1801 there were four Synods with twenty-
eight Presbyteries and not more than 225
ministers, with perhaps 450 churches. The
fact that the churches outnumbered the
ministers as two to one indicates the great
missionary activity of the time. By 181 5

144 The Presbyterians

the numbers had about doubled. There
were then forty-one Presbyteries, 520 min-
isters, 851 churches. But great as was the
missionary entiiusiasm and abundant as was
the fruit, the growth of the country sur-
passed the capacity of the Church to over-
take the spiritual destitutions. Virginia at
this time had nearly a million people and
only forty Presbyterian ministers among
them. Indeed in the great westward move-
ment all of the south had been much neg-
lected. Many of the strongest men from
Virginia and the Carolinas went over the
mountains. Kentucky and Tennessee at-
tracted a multitude of settlers. The popu-
lation of the former state had risen to 400,-
000 with ninety-one Presbyterian churches.
Tennessee with a population of nearly 300,-
000 had seventy-nine Presbyterian churches.
It had two colleges — one at Maryville, the
other in Green County— at each of which
there were students preparing for the min-
istry. Here also was organized thus early

An Era of Missions 145

an independent missionary society. As
one went farther west tlie destitution be-
came greater. Indiana Territory with
25,000 people had only one Presbyterian
minister and Illinois with 13,000 had not
one.

In some of this western and southern
region there were a good many itinerant
Methodist and Baptist missionaries. The
revival of the preceding years had brought
many to leave the plow or the shop and to
begin preaching without any preparation
other than that of zeal for the cause. That
they did good in those rude conditions and
among rude people need not be questioned
but they were poorly qualified to lay the
foundations of Christianity in a new
country. However the West continued to
grow and much at the expense of the East.
Maryland, Delaware and Virginia declined
in the vigor and number of their churches.
In January, 1810, Dr. John H. Rice of Vir-
ginia wrote to Dr. Archibald Alexander as

146 The Presbyterians

follows: "I think the state of religion in
this country worse by some degrees than
when you left it. Presbyterian congrega-
tions are decreasing every year and appear
as if they would dwindle to nothing." The
same was true of some parts of eastern and
central Pennsylvania. The process so dis-
astrously apparent to-day of the decline of
rural eastern communities had already
begun.

Meantime the westward march went on.
The ordinance of 1787 opening up the cen-
tral west and assuring it a stable and free
government was having full effect. The
Church did her best to keep up with the
moving columns of emigration but suffered
for lack of means and men. Only a few
thousand dollars a year was available for
missionary purposes. The missionary sala-
ries were absurdly small. Thirty-three
dollars per month, later raised to forty dol-
lars, was the salary paid men like Jedediah
Chapman and James Hoge. The scarcity

An Era of Missions 147

of properly trained men also forbade a
strong advance. In 1805, Dr. Ashbel Green
overtured the General Assembly in these
urgent words: "Give us ministers, such is
the cry of the missionary region. Give us
ministers is the importunate entreaty of our
numerous and increasing vacancies. Give I
us ministers is the demand of many large
and important congregations in our most •
populous cities and towns."

This appeal resulted immediately in a I
direction to the Presbyteries to seek out
young men fitted by gifts and piety and to ■
help them onward to the ministry. An ap-
peal was also made for funds to aid in their
support. The trustees of the'College of New
Jersey offered generous provision for the
support and instruction of theological stu-
dents. They might study at Princeton " at
the moderate charge of a dollar a week for
board and enjoy the assistance of the presi-
dent and professor of theology without any
fee for instruction." This was the begin-

\

148 The Presbyterians

ning of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Two years later^Dr. Alexander broached
the idea of such a seminary in the General
Assembly. The next year Dr. Ashbel
Green brought in an overture on the subject
and in 1810 steps were taken which two
years later resulted in the organization of
the seminary and its location at Princeton.
The first year Dr. Archibald Alexander was
the only Professor. The next year Dr.
Samuel Miller of New York was made pro-
fessor of church history and government.
In 1814, there were twenty-four students in
attendance. The progress of the institution
was rapid and in 1817, the first edifice — still
standing — was erected.

There were giants in those days: Dr.
Gardiner Spring of New York was just en-
tering on his long and eminent career; Dr.
John B. Romeyn of the same city, whose
eloquence at times was as the rush of an
irresistible torrent; Dr. Eliphalet Nott,
president of Union College, eminent as an

An Era of Missions ^49

executive, scholar and orator; Ashbel
Green, president of the College of New
Jersey, a courtly gentleman of the old
school, sagacious, clear-headed and far-see-
ing, who laid educational foundations to tell
mightily on subsequent generations; Archi-
bald Alexander the model pastor, preacher
and professor, permitted during a whole
generation to shape the lives and think-
ing of hundreds of ministers. In the
West was John McMillan, patriarch of old
Redstone Presbytery and founder of Can-
onsburg Academy and Jefferson College,
strong, brave, impetuous and commanding
in his influence; Matthew Brown, Presi-
dent of Washington College, eccentric —
of lofty character and impassioned elo-
quence; James Hughes, a pioneer pastor
and at the same time an erudite scholar and
finally president of Miami University. In
the south were such men as Moses Hoge,
president of Hampden-Sidney College;
John H. Rice of Richmond, of lovely spirit

150 The Presbyterians

and ardent piety and a practical wisdom ;
David Caldwell, the pioneer preacher of the
Carolinas. These and many others like
them builded well for the Presbyterian
Church in most trying times and deserve to
be had in everlasting remembrance.

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD NORTHWEST

The progress of the Church in the West
in the first quarter of the century is shown
by the following landmarks.

Before the passage of the ordinance for
the government of the Northwest Territory
portions of the territory along the Ohio had
been carefully surveyed. In March, 1786,
the Northeast Ohio Land Company was
formed. Its object was to promote settle-
ments in the new territory. One hundred
settlers were to set out for "the Northeast"
— for the land of promise. Transportation
was to be free and each man was provided
with tools for work and weapons for de-
fense. They left Hartford, Conn., January
ist, 1788— only forty-seven persons. They
crossed the mountains on the line followed
151

152 The Presbyterians

by Braddock's army. It was April before
they reached the Youghiogheny River.
They drifted down to Fort Pitt in a boat fitly
named the Mayflower — the second May-
flower of our national history. Thence
down "The Beautiful River," till on the
seventh of April they made land at the mouth
^of the Muskingum, and founded the town
ol^Marietta — one of the first headquarters of
civilization and education in the west. Of
this brave little company Washington said,
"No colony in America was ever settled
under such favorable auspices as that which
has just commenced at the Muskingum.
Information, property and strength will be
its characteristics. I know many of the
settlers personally and there never were men
better calculated to promote the welfare of
such a community." Washington's proph-
ecy was justified. From that colony
radiated influences which have told mightily
on the education and regeneration of the
west. Indian wars for a time checked the

The Old Northwest 153

colony's growth but at the beginning of the
century it had become a place of such im-
portance that ships were built at its wharves
to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi. The
fertile regions of the two Miamis in the
southwestern part of the state now began
to attract settlers. Cincinnati had been
laid out in 1789. In 1790 ''Father Rice"
from Kentucky, organized the First Presby-
terian Church. They had obtained land for
a building but were too poor to erect one.
So they converted it into a graveyard! In
1791 James Kemper came to them as a
supply. Their first audience-room was a
circle of logs on the lot at the corner of
Fourth and Main Streets. Here under the
canopy in justified alarm on account of In-
dian raids they worshipped God with a
rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
In 1792 a log church was built — the timber
for the building being taken from the lot on
which it was erected. In 1800 Cincinnati
had only 750 inhabitants. Dr. Joshua L.

154 The Presbyterians

Wilson, a man of power and large capacity
for leadership came to the church in 1808.
Thenceforward the growth of church and
city was rapid. In a decade many churches
were formed along the valleys of the Miami
and indeed the whole state became a scene
of pioneer activity.

The northern part of Ohio was the last to
be developed. The Western Reserve was
laid out by a colony from Connecticut and
was first called "New Connecticut." Ac-
cess to this region was diificult. There
were no rivers to facilitate transportation.
The march through the woods of the Em-
pire State was both difficult and dangerous.
And while a large number of the settlers of
the Reserve were from New England, very
many came from western Pennsylvania.
The missionary enterprise of that region
sent many ministers through the forests of
eastern and northern Ohio. So by 1808
fifteen or twenty churches had been organ-
ized and the people were calling for schools

The Old Northwest 155

and churches. Rev. Abraham Scott wrote
in 1809, "People in general here profess a
desire for the gospel. They appear in some
measure to dread the consequences of being
without it, and that both in respect to
themselves and their posterity." The first
Presbytery of the Reserve in loyalty to Con-
necticut was called the Presbytery of Hart-
ford. It was erected by the Synod of
Pittsburg in 1808.

The Synod of Ohio when erected in 18 14
consisted of three Presbyteries — all of them
small. Fifteen years later there were fif-
teen Presbyteries. The ministers had in-
creased from forty-four to two hundred and
sixteen. The congregations from one hun-
dred and fifteen to three hundred and sixty.
The growth on the Western Reserve was
especially large. In fourteen years (from
1 8 16 to 1830) seventy-five churches were
organized in that district alone. The peo-
ple came chiefly from western New York
and New England. Nevertheless, though

156 The Presbyterians

the church grew rapidly the destitutions
were very great. Many places had scarce
one religious service in a year. In 1819
Rev. Mr. Cowles wrote, ''Throughout the
extensive bounds of this Synod there is a
general cry, 'give us ministers' but we
have them not."

Cleveland was settled at the very begin-
ning of the century but for the first decade
made little progress. The opening of the
Erie Canal in 1825 made emigration easy
and thenceforth the Western Reserve grew
rapidly. The First Church was organized
in 1820. Ten years later there were only
three or four male members in town and
the total membership was less than forty.
But six years later the church had grown to
200 members and another church was or-
ganized.

A survey of statistics in 1831 indicates
how rapid had been the growth of Presby-
terianism in Ohio. In Cincinnati Presby-
tery there were 3, 194 church members; in

The Old Northwest 157

Steubenville, 2,228; in Hartford, 2,921; in
Columbus, 1,636; in Chillicothe, 2,098, and
in the state a total of 26,506. Twenty-five
years before the state was an almost un-
broken wilderness.

Ohio and the Northwest generally received
its great impulse toward education which
has ever distinguished it from the ordinance
of 1787 which wisely declared "that relig-
ion, morality and knowledge being neces-
sary to good government and the happiness
of mankind, schools and the means of edu-
cation shall be forever encouraged." In the
article for the sale of western lands it was
provided that "No. 16 of every township
shall be reserved for the maintenance of
public schools within the township." The
western states generally availed themselves
fully of this provision and thus grew up in
the west a public school system which is at
once the pride and bulwark of the nation.
Schools of higher grade and colleges soon
followed. Marietta College dates back al-

158 The Presbyterians

most to the founding of the town. The
Territorial Legislature took early steps for
building a university. Athens, fitly named,
furnished its location. It did not, however,
attain to the dignity of a college until 181 5.

In southwestern Ohio, the ''College
Township " was first set apart a few miles
above Cincinnati but in 1803 Congress
changed the location to a point west of the
Great Miami River. The commissioners
chosen for the purpose located it at Oxford
in Butler County and it was named Miami
University. It has since then graduated
many of the leading public men of the
nation.

In 1826 Western Reserve College was es-
tablished at Hudson. It has recently been
moved to Cleveland and merged in Adel-
bert University.

^>j Oberlin College stands as a typical Ameri-
can Christian college. It has been notable
for its evangelistic and missionary spirit and
for certain philanthropic and reformatory

The Old Northwest 159

ideals which have made it specially in-
fluential in giving moral tone and character
to the state.

The devotion to education which thus
early characterized Ohio marked the other
four states of the " Old Northwest." Chris-
tian education was their watchword and in
them scores of Christian academies and
colleges have put a Christian stamp on new
communities. In all this movement the
Presbyterian Church has taken a leading
place and has vindicated her historic devo-
tion to learning. In Indiana such colleges
as Hanover and Wabash; in Illinois such as
Illinois, Monmouth and Knox Colleges and
Lake Forest and Blackburn Universities
have enabled the intelligence to keep step
with the progress of the state. In Wiscon-
sin such colleges as Carroll, Beloit and
Ripon have laid foundation for learning and
culture.
\ This period was also one of revivals and
church unions. The revival spirit noted in

i6o The Presbyterians

the previous chapter continued with fewer
excesses and showing more substantial
gains. This was especially true in the
North and the West. Thus across the Em-
pire State and into Ohio, Indiana and other
states there was a procession of hardy
pioneers from New England and eastern
New York. The plan of union now in full
operation brought them easily into fellow-
ship with Presbyterian churches. Revivals
continued in central and western New
York and in Ohio and among the moun-
tains of East Tennessee. Everywhere the
churches were strengthened and increased.
In 1816 forty-three Presbyteries were re-
ported. In ten years the number was
doubled. In 18 16 there were 540 ministers;
in 1826, 1,140; while the churches had in-
creased from 920 to over 2,000. The
growth in church membership was even
more marked — having risen from less than
40,000 in 1 8 16 to over 122,000, an increase
in ten years of over 300 per cent. As to

The Old Northwest 161

numbers this was the most fruitful decade
in the history of the Church.

Aside from the wonderful outpouring of
the Holy Spirit which characterized that era
many influences combined to favor the ac-
tivity of the Church. The development of
the West came over the Church as at once a
romance and an opportunity. In a decade
the columns of emigration had reached the
Mississippi River. The missionaries who
visited the camps and settlements in western
forests and on western prairies gave reports
of immorality and degradation that thrilled
and saddened the heart of the Church. She
heard the call to the evangelization of the
country as that of a bugle blown for wars.
A few itinerant missionaries, it was realized,
were wholly incompetent even to measure
— much less to equal— the religious needs
of the West. It began to dawn on the
Church that a campaign must be organized
on the success of which the future of the
Republic would largely depend. The battle

i62 The Presbyterians

for civil liberty, the echoes of which were
still in the air, must be supplemented by
another fight to save the land from the
thralldom of ignorance and sin. So there
came over the Church of every name a spirit
of organization for home and foreign mis-
sions and Christian work of every kind.

The Board of Home Missions which had
hitherto been a Standing Committee of the
Assembly was organized in May,'^i8i6, and
located in the city of New York. Its
powers were so enlarged that the whole
work of home missions was committed to
it, subject to review and approval at the
meetings of the Assembly. A proposition
was made to unite the work of foreign
missions with that of the Home Board. It
was, however, deemed expedient to keep
separate these two great agencies of mis-
sions, each having its own great sphere and
taxing to the full the powers of executive
officers. There was also at this time a
movement to unite the Presbyterian and

The Old Northwest 163

the Reformed Dutch and Associate Re-
formed Churches in foreign mission work.
This union was accomplished in 1817 and
resulted in the " United Foreign Missionary
Society." Its foreign mission work was,
however, confined almost exclusively to the
American Indians and its support came
mainly from the Presbyterian Church.

Another organization that had the hearty
support of the Presbyterian Church was
that of the American Bible Society organ-
ized in 1 8 16. The cause of tract distribu-
tion also received favorable attention. The
Church was thus broadening out along
many lines of missionary activity. The
spirit of cooperation in mission work is
illustrated by the pastoral letter of the As-
sembly of 181 7 which says: "Embrace
every opportunity to the extent of the
ability which God has given you to form
and vigorously to support missionary as-
sociations, Bible Societies, plans for the
distribution of religious tracts and exertions

164 The Presbyterians

for extending the benefits of knowledge
and especially spiritual knowledge to all
ages and classes of persons around you.
. . . We are persuaded that all those
periods and Churches which have been
favored with special revivals of religion
have been also distinguished by visible
union and concert in prayer."

In these days of Christian federation
churches may well take lesson from the
principles announced by the Presbyterian
Church at the beginning of the last century
when it declared: ''That differences of
opinion acknowledged on all hands to be
of a minor class may and ought to be
tolerated among those who are agreed in
great and leading views of Divine truth is
a principle on which the godly have so
long and so generally acted that it seems
unnecessary at the present day to seek
arguments for its support. Our fathers in
early periods of the history of our Church
had their peculiarities and diversities of

The Old Northwest 165

opinion which yet however did not pre-
vent them from loving one another and
cordially acting together." (Gillett, Vol. 2,
pp. 218, 219).

The increasing western development at
this time forced to the front anew the ques-
tion of ministerial supply. Western New
York and eastern Ohio called loudly for
men. The Presbytery of Niagara had
twenty-six congregations but to minister
to them it had only four pastors. Genesee
with nineteen congregations had but two
ministers. In Erie Presbytery there were
twenty-one congregations without a stated
ministry. Farther west and south the situ-
ation was worse. West Tennessee had
only fourteen ministers to a population of
300,000. In Missouri and Mississippi con-
ditions were still harder. The Assembly
of 1825 therefore sounded a note of alarm
and called on the Church to "consider very
seriously the case of the destitute parts of
our country and especially of the many

l66 The Presbyterians

thousands of families in the new states in
the West and in the South which are grow-
ing up almost entirely destitute of the
preaching of the Gospel and of all re-
ligious instruction." They thus appealed
for money to enable the Board of Home
Missions to send out missionaries.

But a new and more serious difficulty had
already emerged when it was impossible to
find men prepared to go. This fact led to
the formation of the Board of Education in
^ 1819. Colleges were now being established
in various parts of the country. ^ Princeton
was attracting many students. Washing-
ton and Jefferson Colleges in Western
Pennsylvania were meeting the intellectual
needs beyond the mountains. Union and
Hamilton Colleges had been established in
central New York and were prospering.
The development of theological training in
this period was remarkable. Never in so
short a time in the history of the Church
did so many theological institutions spring

The Old Northwest 167

into being. It marked a complete change
in ministerial education. The old days
when the pastor was the seminary, the
Greek and Hebrew Testaments were the
library and an earnest young man was the
class were followed by times of more
scholastic training of associated students
under associated instructors. This doubt-
less was a gain in scholarship — a gain also
in contact with men of different types of
thought. That it involved some loss of
pastoral experience and of close fellowship
with a master mind cannot be questioned.
On the whole, however, the gain out-
matches the loss.

The decade from 1825 to 1835 was char-
acterized by an increase of organization.
The spirit of evangelization, the result of
the great revivals of the first two decades
of the century, now sought to body forth its
endeavors in organized form.

Auburn Seminary was founded by the
Synod of Geneva in 1820, to meet the de-

i68 The Presbyterians

mands of the growing Empire State. It
has ever had a scholarly and devoted faculty
and has trained many of the leading minis-
ters of the Church. The Western Semi-
nary at Allegheny, Pa., opened its doors
for students from western Pennsylvania
and eastern Ohio, in 1826. In 1828, the
Synod of Virginia founded^Union Seminary
at Hampden-Sidney and the same year the
seminary at Columbia was opened by the
Synod of South Carolina. At ^Mary ville,
Tenn., Isaac Anderson, a great teacher and
preacher, began an institution which was
at once academy, college and theological
seminary. The need of a theological semi-
nary farther west now began to be felt.
The Lane brothers, members of the Baptist
Church had made the offer of funds to their
own denomination to found such an insti-
tution at Cincinnati. The Baptist Society
to whom it was offered not being able to
' avail themselves of it, the generous donors
gave it to the Presbyterian Church and it

The Old Northwest 169

became the foundation of Lane Seminary.
In 1828, an association was formed "for
establishing a seminary of learning, the
principal object of which shall be to edu-
cate pious young men for the gospel min-
istry." The school was at first both clas-
sical and theological, but in 1834 it became
an exclusively theological institution. Dr.
Lyman Beecher, Dr. Calvin E. Stowe and
Dr. T. J. Riggs were among its earliest
teachers. When Dr. Beecher left New
England to undertake the work of theolog-
ical education in the then far west he gave
his estimate of its importance in these
words: **To plant Christianity in the west
is as grand an undertaking as it was to
plant it in the Roman Empire, with un-
speakably greater permanence and power."
How history has justified that opinion!

In 1829, Indiana and Illinois rapidly filling
up the need of a seminary farther west
than Ohio pressed on the attention of the
Church. Steps were taken by the Synod

lyo The Presbyterians

of Indiana to found a theological institution
in connection with Hanover Academy. The
following year the seminary was organized
and Dr. John Matthews was elected its first
professor. It was removed to New Albany
in 1840 and later was merged in the Theo-
logical Seminary of the Northwest at
Chicago. Meantime the needs of the
southern states were partially supplied by
the Theological Department of Maryville
College in eastern Tennessee. It was cen-
tral to a population of two millions of peo-
ple— large numbers of whom were desti-
tute of all religious privileges. It may illus-
trate the simplicity and heroism of the
times to state that students were so diligent
in working for their own support that in a
single year 1,200 bushels of corn were
credited to their labor and that by this
means the expense of the institution for
their board was reduced to one dollar per
month. The passion for education ex-
tended far out among the western settle-

The Old Northwest 171

ments. In Western Tennessee Nashville
College opened its doors (with a theological
department) in 1825, and the Presbytery of
Mississippi laid the foundations of Oakland
College. In 1826, Union Theological Semi-
nary in Virginia, which had been in opera-
tion for several years, was received under
the care of the General Assembly and Dr.
John H. Rice was appointed a professor.

By the increase in the number of candi-
dates for the ministry the need of educa-
tional societies became apparent. In 1819
the Presbyterian Board of Education was
established. Before that local and volun-
tary societies had sprung up in New Eng-
land. One had been formed in Boston in
181 5 called "The American Educational
Society" and still earlier one had been or-
ganized in Vermont. Small societies de-
signed to help students had sprung up in
many places. They became auxiliary to
the Presbyterian Educational Society or to
the American Educational Society, which

172 The Presbyterians

two societies were united in 1827. So
rapid was the increase in the number of
ministerial candidates that whereas in 1827
there were only thirty-five under the So-
ciety's care two years later there were over
two hundred.

/ In 1826 there was also a union of the
; New York Missionary Society and the
American Board of Commissioners for
.Foreign Missions. The latter organization
— though not connected with the General
Assembly — was already receiving large con-
tributions from the Presbyterian Church.
And as two societies for foreign missions
were not needed it was judged best —
though not without a good deal of opposi-
tion—that the work of foreign missions
should be conducted by the American
Board. The growth of voluntary societies
was one cause of the division which oc-
curred a few years later.

CHAPTER IX

THE DIVISION OF 1 837

We come to an unfruitful period of the
history of the Church. The second quarter
of the century was marked by debates, dis-
sensions and division. The Reformed
Presbyterian Synod was the first of the
Presbyterian bodies to be divided. It con-
sisted of Covenanters or Reformed Presby-
terians, who early in the eighteenth century
had settled in Pennsylvania. They grew
very slowly in numbers. In 1798 the Re-
formed Presbytery of the United States of
America was formed in Philadelphia. The
Synod consisting of three Presbyteries was
organized in 1809. From the first, there
were in the Church two parties, caused by
their relation to the American government.
In 1800 a law was enacted that no slave
173

174 The Presbyterians

holder should be a communicant — a position
always maintained. The question whether
this could be called a Christian government
drew the line between conservatives and
liberals in the Church. After prolonged
debates in Presbyteries and Synod, the dif-
ferences of opinion as to the extent to
which Christians might participate in mat-
ters of state being irreconcilable, the Church
was divided in 1833. The conservative
majority proceeded to enforce its principles.
Members of the church were not allowed
to vote, hold office or sit on juries. The
divorce between the Church and the po-
litical system must be complete. The mi-
nority was known by the name of the
General Synod of the Reformed Presby-
terian Church. It is popularly known as
the New Light Covenanting Church and,
while adhering to its distinctive principles,
it allows its members to discharge civic
duties.
The next body to feel the strain of eccle-

The Division of 1837 175

siastical and theological thought was the
Presbyterian Church. Up to this time the
strenuous pioneer conditions had kept the
Church measurably free from theological
strife. There had of course always been
those differences of thought which tempera-
ment and environment accentuate. But for
the most part they were not much regarded
in church councils and had no effect other
than to cause here and there a ripple on the
surface of church life. But we come now
to the beginning of serious differences
which soon went deeper than the surface.
Dr. Samuel Hopkins of Newport, R. I., was
a man of acumen, originality and power.
His theological influence was scarcely less
than that of Jonathan Edwards. His views ^
differed from those of the accepted theology |
of the day, in that he denied the imputa-
tion of Adam's sin and the righteousness of
Christ and held that all true holiness con-
sisted in bevenolence and all sin, in self-
ishness. These ideas soon had a large

176 The Presbyterians

following in New England and in other
parts of the country. They were held by
Samuel Whelpley, Gardiner Spring, Samuel
Hanson Cox of New York, and others.
They were strongly resisted by the Synod
of Pennsylvania. The discussions concern-
ing them invaded the General Assembly.
But after a time when Hopkins and others
who gave them currency had passed away
they faded from public attention, though
still more or less widely held by individuals
in the Church.

But New England now supplied another
storm centre. Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor,
Professor of Theology in Yale College, ad-
vanced improvements in Calvinism which
were thought to imperil the system. The
following year a young preacher in Mor-
ristown, N. J., by the name of Albert
Barnes declared himself in substantial agree-
ment with Dr. Taylor. He was called to
Philadelphia and there was much opposi-
tion to his installation as pastor of the First

The Division of 1837 177

Church. The matter went from Presbytery
to Synod, which body, condemning his
views, urged him to retract and meantime
suspended him from the functions of the
ministry. He refused to retract. The case
went to the Assembly which, while ex-
pressing disapproval of particular passages,
declared the Presbytery should have been
satisfied with Mr. Barnes' disavowals.
\^ The storm was now on — Philadelphia
and New York shared about equally in its
rigor. Dr. Green, Dr. Junkin and Mr.
McCalla were lined up as the leaders of
strict interpretation of the Confession. Dr.
Skinner, Dr. Potts and Mr. Barnes repre-
sented the liberal views. Rev. James W.
Alexander in gentle sarcasm suggested
** Philadelphia" be changed to ''Misadel-
phia," and Dr. Rice of Union Theological
Seminary in Virginia pleaded that **the
Church is not to be purified by controversy
but by holy love." Visiting the north in
1830 he said sadly, ** Everything is cold and

178 The Presbyterians

dead except the spirit of controversy. In
Philadelphia and New York things are in a
dismal condition."

At about this time Dr. Lyman Beecher
was called to a professorship at Lane Semi-
nary, Cincinnati. He had not been long in
his chair when charges of heresy were pre-
ferred against him by Dr. Joshua L. Wilson,
pastor of the First Church of Cincinnati.
He was charged with holding Arminian
doctrines at variance with the Confession
of Faith in respect to original sin, total de-
pravity and free agency. In June, 1835,
the Presbytery met for the trial of the case.
It was a notable occasion. Both the prose-
cutor and the defendant were men of mark.
Dr. Wilson had for many years been a
leader in the West — a man of dauntless
courage and intellectual power — but of an
aggressive temper that often weakened his
cause in debate. Dr. Beecher had long
been the guardian of orthodoxy against
Unitarianism in New England. The trial

The Division of 1837 179

extended through several days and resulted
in the vindication of Beecher. Dr. Wilson
appealed to the Synod with the same result.
The case was carried to the Assembly but
was never presented before that body.
The reason never was clearly known.
Some said that Dr. Wilson was persuaded
by his friends that he had gone far enough.
Others— that on the way to the Assembly a
rogue stole his coat containing his papers
and that he was therefore without ammuni-
tion to carry on the battle.

The agitation now became general

throughout the Church. On the one hand

I fears of New England theology increased

i and in Presbyteries and Synods a stricter

•adherence to the standards was urged. On

the other hand complaints were loud that

the terms, by which the reunion of the

Synods of New York and Philadelphia was

affected, were being violated and new

bonds were being put on the liberty of the

Church.

l8o The Presbyterians

The troubles were increased by a protest
called ** The Western Memorial" which
was presented to the Assembly in 1834. It
was signed by eighteen ministers and
ninety-nine elders and drew a dark picture
of doctrinal defection and consequent
danger. It reflected on the action of pre-
vious Assemblies charging them with
"avoiding a prompt discharge of their con-
stitutional duties." It also denounced the
Plan of Union, claiming that many who
bore the Presbyterian name adopted the
Standards each according to his own mind
and that many had been ordained to the
Presbyterian ministry before they knew
what Presbyterianism was; voluntary as-
sociations were, also discredited and the
Home Missionary Society was declared to
be subversive of the Presbyterian system.
The answer of the Assembly was of course
unsatisfactory. It refused to abrogate the
Plan of Union and to reflect on the action
of preceding Assemblies and generally op-

The Division of 1837 181

posed itself to the high church views of the
Memorialists.

The minority now drew up a remarkable
paper called ''The Act and Testimony."
It affirmed in yet stronger language the
statements of the Memorial. It declared
church courts recreant to their duty in up-
holding the doctrines of the Church; that
Synods and Assemblies were ''made the-
atres for the open display of humiliating
scenes of human passion and weakness,"
and called upon church courts to purge the
church of heresies and asked church officers
and Assemblies believing in the principles
stated to give them their public adherence.
This was in effect a call for a division of
the Church. A convention to ratify "The
Act and Testimony " was called to meet in
Pittsburg previous to the meeting of the
Assembly of 1835 to adopt such measures
as should be "best suited to restore the
prostrate Standards." Thirty-seven min-
isters and twenty-seven elders signed this

l82 The Presbyterians

call. The leaders in this movement were
Dr. Joshua L. Wilson of Cincinnati, Dr.
R. J. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and Drs.
Green and George Junkin and James Latta
of Pennsylvania.
N^ The Princeton Review set itself against
these extreme measures. It called them
equivalent to ** recommendations to re-
nounce the allegiance of the Church"; that
they were ''extra constitutional and revo-
lutionary and to be opposed." It truly de-
clared ''division is the end to which this
enterprise leads and to which, we doubt
not, it aims." The Review undoubtedly
represented the views of a large proportion
of the Church.

The convention which had been called
met in Pittsburg in May, 1835; forty-one
Presbyteries were represented and minori-
ties from thirteen more. A list of griev-
ances in line with "The Act and Testi-
mony " was drawn up and presented to the
Assembly. It portrayed the condition of

The Division of 1837 183

the Church in dark colors and urged the
annulhng of the "Plan of Union" to the
operation of which it traced the troubles
that were affecting the Church. The alarms
which had been sounded were bearing
fruit. The Assembly proved to be in sym-
pathy with the Memorialists and while not
going the full length of the grievances that
were presented nevertheless condemned the
"elective affinity" principle of constituting
church courts and pronounced against the
"Plan of Union." It did not, however,
favor an entire break with the New Eng-
land churches and it refused to prohibit the
work of voluntary societies like the Educa-
tional and the Home Missionary Societies.

The Memorialists felt, now that the As-
sembly was back of them, they could go
further. The Synod of Philadelphia re-
sumed the prosecution of Mr. Barnes and
suspended him from the ministry. He ap-
pealed to the Assembly of 1836 when again
the scale turned and his friends were in the

184 The Presbyterians

majority and his appeal against the Synod
was sustained.

The defeated party prepared at once to
line up their forces for the next meeting of
the Assembly. Confidential circulars were
sent out to all who were supposed to be in
sympathy with them and a convention was
called to meet in Philadelphia just before the
Assembly 0^1837. In a pamphlet issued to
prepare the way for action it was openly
avowed, " In some way or other these men
must be separated from us." The Prince-
ton Review still pleaded for peace and union
and exposed the folly of division. But in
vain. There was a good deal of division of
sentiment over the discussions of the con-
vention which was attended by about one
hundred ministers and elders, but there was
general agreement on the necessity for drastic
measures to purge the Church of the errors
and defections which were creeping in upon
her. The memorial to the Assembly was
in substance the same as that of the pre-

The Division of 1837 185

ceding year: the "Plan of Union" must
cease; voluntary societies could no longer
be countenanced; churches and Presbyteries
not organized on Presbyterian principles
must no longer be recognized; every minis-
ter entering a Presbytery, no matter what
his standing in another Presbytery, must be
examined. These and similar requirements
were laid before the Assembly which met
in Philadelphia on the i8th of May, 1837.
Dr. John Witherspoon opened the Assembly
^ with a sermon pleading for peace. But the
Ibattle royal was soon on. The two parties
?were led with great ability. On the con-
servative side were Plumer, Breckenridge,
Junkin and Greene. On the other side
were Beman, Porter, DufField, Dickinson
and others. The vote for moderator,
electing Dr. David Elliott, foreshadowed
the result. The first action taken May
22d was that regarding the ''Plan of
Union." The assent of the other party to
it (the General Assembly of Connecticut)

i86 The Presbyterians

was not even considered. In vain its friends
pleaded the good it had effected in giving
churches to new communities. It was re-
garded as inimical to sound doctrine and
Presbyterian order. Dr. Alexander and
others admitted its past value, but thought
in changed and more settled conditions it
was no longer needed. It was declared
"unnatural and unconstitutional," and was
therefore abrogated.

On motion of Mr. Plumer the Assembly
next, after prolonged debate and by a re-
duced majority, adopted a resolution sum-
moning inferior judicatories, which com-
mon fame charged with irregularities, to the
bar of the next Assembly.

An effort was next made for a voluntary
division of the Church and a committee
from representatives of both parties was
appointed to mature a plan for bringing it
about. The committee ^was unable to
agree.

The next step was the offering of a reso-

The Division of 1837 187

lution, also by Mr. Plumer, exscinding the
Western Reserve Synod whicli had been
formed on the basis of the "Plan of Union."
After an acrimonious debate the resolution
was adopted by a vote of 132 to 105 and
the Synod of the Western Reserve was de-
clared to be no longer a part of the Presby-
terian Church. After that the steps were
easily and swiftly taken. The Home Mis-
sionary Society, the American Educational
Society, and all their branches were pro-
nounced injurious to the Church, and
churches were recommended to cease all
cooperation with them. The following day
the Synods of Utica, Geneva and Genesee
were similarly exscinded. This action was
accompanied by a direction to ministers and
churches within the bounds of these Synods
who were really Presbyterian to apply for
admission to the nearest Presbytery. The
third Presbytery of Philadelphia, to which
Mr. Barnes belonged and which had stood
by him in his various trials, was also dis-

l88 The Presbyterians

solved. Thus was the division accomplished
which for a generation was to be the occa-
sion of strife among brethren.

Other measures, directly or indirectly
connected with the disputes which resulted
in the division, followed as a matter of
course. On an impartial review after two
generations have given perspective for an
unbiased examination of the conditions
which forced the division, it is evident that
while the " Plan of Union " was not known
to the Constitution of the Presbyterian
Church and therefore introduced a foreign
element which might at anytime cause irri-
tation and suspicion, yet the summary abro-
gation of it "by the vote of a majority"
and the exscinding at the same time by a
mere resolution of four Synods was an ex-
tra constitutional act which might justly be
feared to imperil the standing and rights of
other Synods in the future.

The questions such fears would raise
might have been trusted to secure a recon-

The Division of 1837 189

sideration of the Assembly's high-handed
action at some time not far away when the
passions of party should have had some
chance to cool — had not another question
now come into the ecclesiastical arena which
made the separation final. That question
>vas the question of slavery. This has
played so large a part in the history of the
Presbyterian Church even to the present
time that a brief review of it is important.
The earliest action on the subject in 1787 has
already been noted. But Banquo's ghost
was destined to a continued reappearance.
In 1818 the matter of the sale of a Christian
slave was brought before the Assembly.
That body took prompt and positive action.
It declared: "We consider the voluntary
enslaving of one part of the human race by
another as a gross violation of the most
sacred and precious rights of human nature
and as utterly inconsistent with the law of
God." And after depicting the evils of
slavery the document concludes by declar-

/

190 The Presbyterians

ing it to be the duty of Christians "to use
their honest, earnest and unwearied endeav-
ors to correct the error of former times and
as speedily as possible to efface this blot on
our holy religion and to obtain the complete
abolition of slavery throughout Christendom
and if possible throughout the world."
Nothing stronger or more comprehensive
could well be written.

This remained the attitude of the Church
until 1837. The question now assumed
new proportions. The discussions in the
South were intense and continuous. Some
ministers left the South and moved to Ohio
because unable longer to countenance slav-
ery. The antislavery sentiment of Ken-
tucky grew stronger under the influence of
such leaders as ''Father Rice." It is a
remarkable fact that from 1825 to 1837
there were more antislavery societies in
the South than in the North. It is said
there were forty-one in North Carolina and
twenty-three in Tennessee and many others

The Division of 1837 191

in Virginia and Kentucky. They were
founded chiefly by a Quaker — Benjamin
Lundy. In 1833 the subject was discussed
for two days in the Synod of Kentucky
and when Synod adjourned without taking
action, Dr. Breckenridge rose and declared,
"Since God has forsaken the Synod of
Kentucky, Robert J. Breckenridge will for-
sake it too." The following year, how-
ever, strong action was taken denouncing
the system as one that was demoralizing to
blacks and whites and calculated to draw
down the vengeance of heaven.

But this advanced public sentiment was
not general in the South. Meantime a rad-
ical antislavery crusade was being pushed
in the North. Inflammatory publications
were flung abroad. A reaction was inevi-
table and came swiftly. The southern states
stiffened their slave laws. It was the last
desperate effort of the "peculiar institu-
tion" to maintain its power. As the centre
o( the antislavery movement was in New

192 The Presbyterians

England, those who favored the New Eng-
land theology were easily classed as aboli-
tion fanatics. While the cleavage between
Old and New School by no means indicated
the division of sentiment in regard to slav-
ery, yet it was probably true that the strong-
est feeling was among those who favored
free ecclesiastical methods and voluntary
societies. So at least the people in the
South believed. The result was that as the
antislavery feeling rose in the North it de-
clined in the South.

The years following the division in 1837
were years of strife and consequent aliena-
tion. In 1838, after an ineffectual attempt
of the exscinded Synods to secure recogni-
tion as a constituent part of the General
Assembly, a separate organization was
effected in the First Presbyterian church of
Philadelphia and the Assembly subsequently
known as the New School was constituted.
The acts of the Assembly of 1837 were re-
pealed; the Home Missionary Society and

The Division of 1837 193

the Educational Society were endorsed and
commended to the churches; the act by
which the four Synods had been declared
no longer a part of the Presbyterian Church
was pronounced ** utterly at variance with
the constitution of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States of America and there-
fore inoperative and void."

To determine questions of ecclesiastical
rights and property, suit was brought
against the Old Assembly by the New in
the Supreme Court for the eastern district
of Pennsylvania. The verdict was in favor
of the New School. An appeal to the
Supreme Court in banc resulted in an order
for a new trial — which however never was
had. Each Church retained the property
within its bounds. The lines of division
now ran through all parts of the Church.
In Kentucky there was long debate and only
a small company of ministers and, at the
first, only one church united with the New
School Assembly. In Missouri an independ-

194 The Presbyterians

ent Synod was formed which, however,
after a few years joined the New School
Assembly. The Synods of Michigan and
Tennessee adhered to the New School
Assembly from the first. The Synod of
Indiana, divided easily on a principle of
elective affinity. In Ohio the New School
Assembly was formed by fifty-five mem-
bers who had withdrawn from the Old
School Assembly. In New York, Illinois,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other states,
the division was recognized as an accom-
plished fact and the minority on which-
ever side it might be withdrew and formed
a new body. All thought of reunion was
now given up and the two bodies ad-
dressed themselves with energy to their re-
spective tasks.

But the years immediately preceding and
following division were years of lessened
power. The activity which in the early
decades of the century had been expended
on missionary lines was now put into

The Division of 1837 I95

ecclesiastical debate and action. After the
division churches as well as Synods and
Presbyteries were rent asunder. Weak
churches were formed by small bands
seceding from the parent organization and
alienations created which a generation
would not remove.

The two denominations (for such they
had now become) went on with their work
but not without difficulty in adjusting
themselves to their new conditions. Thus
the New Assembly soon found itself in
trouble in its missionary and educational
work because of its alliance with Congrega-
tional churches and methods. The Home
Missionary Society was governed by rules
which made it far easier for Congregational
churches to avail themselves of its aid than
for Presbyterian churches. The Church
had given her missionary money to the
Home Missionary Society. Much of it went
to build up Congregational churches. After
years of fruitless conference in 1852 the

196 The Presbyterians

Assembly appointed the Church Extension
Committee into whose hands the home
mission work gradually drifted. So that in
1 86 1 the Assembly formally assumed the
responsibility of conducting home mission
work within its bounds.

The necessity of a society for ministerial
education also pressed on the Church and
in 1856 such a society was appointed by
the Assembly and located in New York.
About the same time a publication com-
mittee was constituted to ''publish such
works of an evangelical character as may
be profitable to the Church."

The Old School branch of the Church did
not need reorganization. Well equipped
with the machinery for aggressive work it
made rapid progress. The South and
Southwest presented inviting missionary
fields which were energetically occupied.
The opening West and Northwest also
furnished fruitful fields for church exten-
sion. Its Board of Foreign Missions grew

The Division of 1837 197

in strength and reached to foreign lands in
many directions. It would have been for
both branches of the Church a time of
signal prosperity but for a storm of vast
proportions long heralded and now be-
ginning to envelope the entire nation.
This storm's effect on the life and work of
the Church will occupy the pages of the
next chapter.

CHAPTER X

THE CIVIL WAR AND ITS RESULTS

From 1840 the antislavery sentiment of
the country developed rapidly. At the same
time the struggle of slavery to maintain its
position was intense to desperation. As
early as 1837 a Presbyterian minister, the
Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, because he dared to
publish articles against slavery, was set upon
by a mob at Alton, III., and slain. Another
Presbyterian, James G. Birnie, of Alabama,
emancipated his slaves, and coming North
to give his life to the cause, became in 1840
and 1844 the first antislavery candidate
for President. Dr. David Nelson, another
southern abolitionist, narrowly escaped mob
violence because of his bold declarations as
to the sinfulness of slavery.

The Rev. Albert Barnes was one of the

most courageous and, because of his mod-
198

The Civil War and Its Results 199

eration, one of the most influential of the
antislavery men of the times. He de-
nounced the spirit and methods of many of
the abolitionists while at the same time un-
sparingly denouncing the system. He was,
however, bolder than many of his brethren.
The Assemblies following the division felt
the effect of the inflamed state of the South.
As already quoted, the Church had in 1818
put herself on record without wavering as
the foe of a system which it declared a
"blot on our holy religion." But it was
not again affirmed by either Assembly until
after the War had broken out. Some of the
southern church courts flatly contradicted
it. The Presbytery of Harmony, S. C, re-
solved in 1836, "that the existence of
slavery is not opposed to the will of God."
The Synod of Virginia said, "The General
Assembly had no right to declare that rela-
tion sinful which Christ and his apostles
teach to be consistent with the most unques-
tionable piety." Thus, while the churches

200 The Presbyterians

from a mistaken policy became silent, the
evils of slavery grew to such proportions as
to challenge the condemnation of Christians
all over the world. The New School As-
sembly was the more positive in its declara-
tions and in 1853 called on the churches un-
der its care in the South to make report of
what had been done to purge the Church of
this great evil. One of its Presbyteries, that
of Lexington in Kentucky, replied that its
ministers and members were slave holders
by choice and on principle. The Assembly
had no alternative but to condemn a state-
ment so out of harmony with the history of
the Church and as a consequence the entire
contingent of the Assembly in the South
withdrew. Six Synods and twenty-one
Presbyteries formed the united Synod of the
Presbyterian Church. They sought admis-
sion to the Old School Assembly, but only
on condition that that Assembly disapprove
of the exscinding act of 1837. This the As-
sembly refused to do.

The Civil War and Its Results 201

The Old School Assembly in order to pre-
serve the unity of the Church declined some-
what from the strenuous position it had
taken in 1818 to an attitude of condemna-
tion of certain evils connected with slavery.
It no longer attacked the institution itself.
Indeed it could not have done so and have
kept the southern churches. The result of
its compromises, however, as of compro-
mises generally was that it lost its hold
somewhat on both sections of the country.
The South was offended to have action taken
like that of 1845 condemning the slave laws
of some of the states; or that of 1849 in
which the Assembly refused to countenance
the ** traffic in slaves for the sake of gain."
On the other hand a continually increasing
number in the northern states were not con-
tent with the mild and, as they regarded it,
tampering action of the Church. In illustra-
tion, in 1849 the Presbytery of Chillicothe in
Ohio asked the Assembly to declare slavery
a sin and to enjoin the lower courts to make

202 The Presbyterians

it a ground of church discipline. The As-
sembly voted that it was "inexpedient or
improper for it to attempt or propose meas-
ures of emancipation." Thus the Church
with the nation was drifting toward a rock.
Feelings were becoming intense — lines were
sharply drawn. The irrepressible conflict
was on. Though the Church maintained
its unity until the breaking out of the Civil
War the years immediately preceding were
times of acrimonious debate in church
courts and of anxiety, suspicion and aliena-
tion between the churches north and south.
At last the storm broke. Compromises
in state and Church were at an end. On
the seventeenth of April, 1861, the first gun
was fired on Ft. Sumpter. The appeal was
removed from the forum to the field. The
Old School Assembly met in Philadelphia
one month after the attack on Sumpter.
Eight states had already seceded. It was
not possible to keep the national question
out of church courts. The border states

The Civil War and Its Results 203

were hesitating. It is said Lincoln desired
the General Assembly to give an expression
of loyalty to the general government that
would strengthen the hands of the adminis-
tration in its efforts to prevent the secession
of Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mis-
souri. A few commissioners were present
from states already in the Confederacy.
They made every effort to prevent action in
the hope that the bonds which held the
Church together might survive the sunder-
ing of national ties. They were not with-
out friends in the North who sympathized
with this hope. They were for the most
part the leading spirits of the Assembly.
There was, however, one leader who in this
crisis came forward to champion the cause
of the majority in carrying the Assembly to
an expression of loyalty to the Union. That
man was Gardiner Spring, the venerable
pastor of the Brick Church in New York.
By temperament and conviction he was a
conservative. An antislavery man, he had

204 The Presbyterians

been pronounced in his condemnation of
abolitionists. He had joined other con-
servatives in an appeal to ministers of the
South, after South Carolina had seceded,
inviting to united prayer that war might
yet be averted. But when secession was
an accomplished fact with characteristic
courage he led in the movement for a quick
declaration of loyalty. After various prop-
ositions had failed he offered the famous
"Spring Resolutions." They committed
the Church to ** obligations to promote and
perpetuate— so far as in us lies — the integ-
rity of these United States and to strengthen,
uphold and encourage the Federal Govern-
ment in the exercise of all its functions
under our noble constitution and to this
constitution in all its provisions, require-
ments and principles we profess our un-
abated loyalty." After two days of debate
it was referred to a committee of nine who
reported by a majority of eight to one that
no action was necessary. Dr. William C.

The Civil War and Its Results 205

Anderson of San Francisco stood alone on
that committee for prompt and decided ac-
tion. He reported the resolutions to the
Assembly and urged their adoption. The
Assembly adopted them by a vote of one
hundred and fifty-six to sixty-six. The
passions of the time may be judged by
the fact that these resolutions were criti-
cized as feeble and indecisive. But their
restrained dignity was of far more help
to the government than any violent out-
burst could possibly have been. More
than any other public declaration of the
day it was influential in holding the border
states to the Union. -^Dr. Charles Hodge and
fifty-seven others entered protest against
this action — not from any lack of loyalty to
the government — but solely because they
believed it beyond the province of an ec-
clesiastical court to decide in a disputed
political question. That question was
whether states had a right under the con-
stitution peaceably to secede. That question

2o6 The Presbyterians

was left undecided in 1789 when the con-
stitution was adopted on purpose that some
states, which were hesitating to enter the
national compact, might be encouraged to
do so with a possible door for peaceable
withdrawal open to them. Why then
should a church court decide on that ques-
tion ? This was the contention of the prot-
estants and from their point of view it had
logical cogency. But all such academic
considerations were brushed aside by an
Assembly sitting at the very time when the
peaceful nation suddenly became an armed
camp and which could not help catching
the patriotic fire which swept over the land.
The going out of the southern churches
followed as a matter of course. A conven-
tion was held in Augusta, Ga., in August,
1 86 1, at which commissioners from ten
Synods embracing forty-seven Presbyteries
constituted the first General Assembly of
"The Presbyterian Church in the Confed-
erate States of America." Dr. Benjamin M,

The Civil War and Its Results 207

Palmer of New Orleans who was an advo-
cate of secession from the first was fitly |
chosen moderator. It was frequently said
at the time that the Spring Resolutions cut
the ties between northern and southern As-
semblies. This was not true. The War
brought on the division of every Protestant
body. The attitude of the Southern As-
sembly was manifest when at its first meet-
ing it declared: "It is desirable that each
nation should have a separate and inde-
pendent Church and the Presbyteries of the
Confederate states need no apology for
bowing to the decree of Providence which
in withdrawing their country from the gov-
ernment of the United States has at the
same time determined that they should
withdraw from the Church of their fathers."
The vital relation of slavery and secession
alike in Church and state is illustrated by
the action of the Southern Assembly in
1864 in which they say, "The long con-
tinued agitations of our adversaries have

2o8 The Presbyterians

wrought within us a deeper conviction of
the divine appointment of domestic servi-
tude and have led to a clearer comprehen-
sion of the duty 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 to both master and
slave."

In 1864 the Southern Church received
the United Synod which had seceded from
the New School Church on account of its
"political deliverances."

The work of the Presbyterian churches
north and south was of course much hin-
dered by the War— more however in the
South than in the North. At the close of
the war the Southern Church changed its
corporate title to that of " The Presbyterian
Church in the United States."

The Church which had lost so heavily
was now however strengthened by acces-
sions from the border states. It was in

The Civil War and Its Results 209

these states that the result of the War ]
brought the most trouble to the churches.
Dr. Samuel R. Wilson, in 1865, drafted a
"Declaration and Testimony" protesting
against all the deliverances of the Old
School Assembly during and in relation to
the war and against the decisions of the
two preceding Assemblies on slavery and
loyalty. Fifty-four ministers and one hun-
dred and seventy-three ruling elders, chiefly
in the border states, signed this document.
It became the occasion for disputes and
divisions running through years. The As-
sembly of 1866 condemned the document
as "a slander on the Church, schismatical
in character and aims"; called its signers to
the bar of the next Assembly ; excluded
them meantime from all church courts, and
declared any Presbytery dissolved that
should enroll them in its membership.
This heroic action was called "The Gurley
Order " and passed the Assembly by a vote
of one hundred and ninety-six to thirty-

210 The Presbyterians

seven. If there had been hopes of com-
promise and harmony this ended them.
The Synods of Kentucky and Missouri
were cut off from the Assembly and suits
for church property on the one side or the
other were promptly instituted. As was to
be expected, the courts of the state decided
against the Assembly. Carried to the su-
preme court of the United States the de-
cision was reversed and the property went
into the hands of the General Assembly.

It cannot be doubted that party passions
gave an unjustifiable rigor to the acts both
of Synod and General Assembly in the
years following the war. Allowance was
not made for differences in point of view
and divisions were caused which a gentler
and more judicial temper would probably
have avoided. The breach between Pres-
byteries and Assembly in Kentucky was
made final in 1868 when they united with
the Southern Assembly. The Synod of
Missouri maintained an independent posi-

The Civil War and Its Results 21 1

tion till 1874 when it too joined the South-
ern Church. Other accessions to that
Church were the Associate Reformed Pres-
bytery of Alabama in 1867 and of Kentucky
in 1870.

CHAPTER XI

REUNION

No sooner had the War made separation
between northern and southern Presbyteri-
ans final and complete than there appeared
among the churches of the North a desire
for closer fellowship. Indeed during the
War several attempts at union were made
by the Old and New School Assemblies.

In 1862 on suggestion of the Old School
Assembly a friendly interchange of com-
missioners was arranged between them.
The next step came in 1864 when the Old
School body proposed a conference looking
to reunion. In 1866, both Assemblies were
in session in St. Louis. The general desire
for reunion was expressed by the fact that
many Presbyterians from both bodies had
taken steps in that direction. The Old

Reunion 213

School Assembly in session in the Second
Presbyterian church proposed to the New
School, which was meeting in the First
church, a joint committee of nine ministers
and six ruling elders from each body to
discuss the question of union. In this pro-
posal the Assembly voiced an "earnest de-
sire for reunion at the earliest time con-
sistent with agreement in doctrine, order
and polity on the basis of our common
standards and the prevalence of mutual love
and confidence." To this proposal the
New School gave unanimous assent. The
report of this committee in 1867 recom-
mended "reunion on the doctrinal and
ecclesiastical basis of the common Stand-
ards," the Confession of Faith to be re-
ceived "in its fair historical sense." Dr.
Hodge attacked this plan in The Princeton,
Review declaring that the New School
church did not accept all the doctrines of
the Calvinistic system.
r Pending the debate on the plan proposed

214 ^^^ Presbyterians

at the call of the Reformed Presbyterian
General Synod and through the influence of
the broad-minded George H. Stuart a con-
vention of all Presbyterian churches was
called to consider the question of a union
not merely of Old and New School but of
all the various branches of the Presbyterian
family. It was held in the First Reformed
Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, No-
vember 8, 1867. Delegates were present
from all the Presbyterian bodies. The
deliberations which were characterized by
the utmost harmony crystallized in the
adoption of a proposition that "in the
United Church the Westminster Confession
of Faith should be received and adopted as
containing the system of doctrine taught in
the Holy Scripture." While this convention
made little progress toward the end for
which it was called it served to clear the air.
When the New School delegates adopted
this declaration almost unanimously the
objections to a reunion which many Old

Reunion 215

School men had felt were sensibly weak-
ened. But as the sentiment in favor of the
main object grew in intensity throughout
both Churches the difficulties in the way of
actual union seemed to increase. Debate
went on. One proposition after another
was presented only to be discarded or with-
drawn. The Assemblies of 1869 met in
New York. During the year preceding
there had been much debate and criticism,
often sharp and unfriendly. There was
less reunion enthusiasm and the end for
which so many earnest souls were longing
seemed in imminent jeopardy. But Provi-
dence was guiding. From the very first
meeting the question of reunion constantly
recurred. A new committee of conference
was appointed. To it was referred the
report of the Joint Committee and all pre-
vious actions. No stronger committee could
have been named. On the part of the Old
School were Drs. Musgrave, Hall, Atwater,
Lord and Wilson with ruling elders Drake,

2l6 The Presbyterians

Francis, Carter, Grier and Day. On the
New School side were Drs. Adams, Stearns,
Patterson, Fisher, and Shaw with elders
Strong, Haines, Dodge, Ferrand and Knight.
This committee, steering clear of all tech-
nical statements and explanations proposed
reunion on the basis of the Standards alone,
"each recognizing the other as a sound and
orthodox body according to the principles
of the Confession common to both." The
right basis was struck. Mutual confidence
must be the corner-stone of that building.
This simple plan was heartily adopted, —
unanimously by the New School and by a
vote of two hundred and eighty-five to nine
in the Old School body. The votes in the
Presbyteries confirming this action were in
about the same proportion. Both bodies
were so sure of favorable action on the
overtures sent down to the Presbyteries
that they agreed both Assemblies should
meet in Pittsburg in November to consider /S
the result,— the Old School Assembly in the

Reunion 217

First church — the New School in the Third
church. A canvass of votes showed that
the Old School Presbyteries had declared
for reunion with but three dissenting votes.
In the New School body the vote was
unanimous. At ten o'clock on Friday
morning, November I2thyi869, each As-
sembly notified the other of the action of
the Presbyteries. Each body formally de-
clared the Basis of Union of binding force
and voted its own dissolution calling the
United Assembly to meet in the First
church of Philadelphia in 1870. But an
adjournment could not be had without an
expression of the joy that filled all hearts.
The exercises attending these meetings
were of the most impressive character.
After the business had been transacted the
two bodies met in front of the First church
and marched up Sixth Avenue in a body to
the Third church where a great ratification
meeting was held. As the head of the
column led by the two moderators, Drs.

2i8 The Presbyterians

Jacobus and Fowler arm in arm, entered
the noble edifice, the great waiting audience
sprang to its feet and broke forth in the
doxology —

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

The two moderators made appropriate ad-
dresses and then clasped hands. Dr. David
Elliot, who was moderator at the time of the
division in 1837, was on the platform. Dr.
Jacobus in the metaphor of a marriage, ad-
dressing the venerable Dr. Elliot said, "If
there be any person present who knows of
any just and sufficient reason why these
parties may not be lawfully united let him
speak or ever after hold his peace." Dr.
Elliot replied, "I know of none." George
H. Stuart, an enthusiastic spectator, ex-
claimed, "What God hath joined together
let not man put asunder." Dr. Jacobus
added, "In the name of God, Amen."
" Amens" arose all over the house, and so
amid signals of joy and tears of rejoicing

Reunion 219

the work was done.^Thus after thirty yearsA
of division the Church which never should;]
have divided was most happily united. '

The United Assembly met in 1870 in
Albert Barnes' church in Philadelphia.
Thirty-four Synods were constituted. The
machinery of the Church was speedily re-
arranged. The New School body had
found in the years of division that volun-
tary societies in which different denomina-
tions were allied were not the most effective
forms of church progress. They readily
consented to the organization of Boards
under the control of the Assembly. They
withdrew from the American Board, divid-
ing the mission fields with that noble
agency and united in the support of the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions
with headquarters in New York. The
Boards of Home Missions and Publication
were consolidated and the former located
in New York — the latter in Philadelphia.

One of the measures provided for by the

220 The Presbyterians

reunion was a memorial Thanksgiving Fund
for the enlargement of the work of the
Church. Under the enthusiastic leadership
of the secretary of this fund, Dr. F. F.
Ellinwood, it amounted to 17,607,491.
N^ Thus the Church entered on an era of
expansion. The times were favorable for
it. A practical spirit took possession of
the Church. Theological discussions were
largely retired. The religious needs of the
world at home and abroad loomed up large
and commanding. The main question now
before the Church was what could she do
to meet the rnoral and spiritual demands of
the times. The result was a great revival
of practical Christianity. It found expres-
sion in new organizations and in the new
spirit with which approved organizations
were pushed.
\^ Home missions engaged the attention of
the Church as perhaps never before. There
was not more missionary enthusiasm than
at the beginning of the century when the

Reunion 22 1

West was first opened to emigration. But
to the enthusiasm was added a capacity un-
known before. The Board of Home Mis-
sions which had long been an effective
agency now put forth new power. Dr.
Henry Kendall at the reunion was made
Secretary of the United Board. Dr. Cyrus
Dickson was associated with him. They
nobly supplemented each other. Dr. Kendall
was a man with large views and the grasp
of a statesman. Dr. Dickson was an orator
with rare power to arouse the Church to
her duty. Together they carried on a great
campaign. Wherever new communities
gathered there the Presbyterian missionary
was on hand to preach the gospel and
establish Christian institutions.

The two decades following reunion wit-
nessed a tremendous westward movement.
New cities sprang up as by magic, from the
lakes to the mountains. New states put
forth commercial and political power. The
glory of those decades was in the fact that

222 The Presbyterians

the Christian Church kept pace with the
national growth and the Presbyterian
Church by her enterprise and devotion
honored the best periods of her history.
Thus in 1869 nine young men from one
of the seminaries consecrated themselves
to the work of home missions. They
found their field in Kansas and were called
"The Kansas Band^' The Synod of
Kansas was the result^f their labors. The
man who was the guide and bishop of
these young men and of a hundred others
who within the next twenty years went into
Kansas was the Rev. Timothy Hill, D. D.,
a pioneer and missionary superintendent
of rare tact, devotion and power. Nearly
three hundred churches organized by him
or through his influence in Kansas and the
Indian Territory are his monument. He
was one of many. Men like Daniel Baker
of Texas, Henry Little of Indiana, A. T.
Norton of Illinois, B. G. Riley, Matthew
Fox and others of Wisconsin, and David C.

Reunion 223

Lyon of Minnesota, laid foundations on
which generations to come will build for
the strength and glory of the Church.

All the other benevolent agencies of the
Church were pressed with vigor. In foreign
missions there was notable advance. A new
impetus was given to the purpose to preach
the gospel to every creature and the daring
thought began to come over the Church
that it was possible to sound the glad
tidings to all the people of the earth
within a single generation. New stations
were opened in many lands and new enthu-
siasm was aroused throughout the Church
at home.

Presbyteries were now^ beginning to plan
for a world campaign in which all branches
of the Church might unite. Soon after the
reunion of the Old and New School
Churches a movement was inaugurated by
Dr. James McCosh, President of Princeton
College, to secure more intimate and co-
operative relations among Presbyterians of

224 The Presbyterians

every name and in every country. It was
in 1876 that the ''Alliance of the Reformed
Churches throughout the world holding the
Presbyterian system " was formed. "The
objects of the Alliance are chiefly the crea-
tion of a spirit of fraternity among brethren
of like mind and the advancement of the
great cause of missions." It holds quadren-
nial meetings which are called "General
Councils," having only advisory powers.
It embraces about sixty divisions of the
great Reformed family. By it all branches
of the Church are brought into communica-
tion with one another. While so far little
more than friendly interchanges of thought
have marked the conventions, it is hoped
that at some time not far away they may be
the means of more closely federating the
families of the Presbyterian Church for or-
ganized and joint endeavors in missionary
work if not for actual ecclesiastical union.
That it has already stimulated a desire for
closer bonds between the divided members

Reunion 225

of the Presbyterian household cannot be
doubted.

At different times committees of northern
and southern churches have been in confer-
ence in regard to a union. That which oc-
casioned the division was however too fully
in memory to allow of any decisive prog-
ress. When the Centennial Assembly of
the Northern Church met in May, 1888, the
Southern Assembly went from Baltimore to
Philadelphia to join in the celebration and
give eloquent expression to feelings of fra-
ternity and good- will, '-^ut nothing more
came of it. And as indicating some reac-
tion from the brotherly interchanges of
other years the Southern Assembly of 1894
refused to appoint a committee to confer
again on the question of a reunion of the
two Assemblies. There the matter rests
for the present. TheNorthern Assembly
has repeatedly manifested its willingness to
unite with the Southern Church on the basis
of the Standards common to both and in

226 The Presbyterians

brotherly oblivion of the past. The South-
ern Assembly, however, has not yet been
convinced of the orthodoxy of their breth-
ren. On that account, and perhaps also be-
cause of unrepealed action by the Northern
Church during and in regard to the War,
they are of the opinion that the two bodies
must work out their separate destiny and
with good-will toward each other do their
individual work. But time is a great healer.
The real causes of the division have passed
away. These two great bodies belong to-
gether historically and by their message and
their mission. They will yet be reunited.
There will also be other unions with smaller
Presbyterian bodies and there will yet be a
National Presbyterian Church.

CHAPTER XII

HERESY TRIALS

The Presbyterian Church is a theological
Church. It has a definite creed — loyalty to
which it exacts from all its office bearers.!
That creed is expressed in the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Larger and\
Shorter Catechisms. This does not mean-
that every minister or ruling elder is to sub-
scribe to every statement in these Standards
but that he accepts the system of doctrine
therein taught. The Reunion of Old and
New School Churches was effected on the
basis of these Standards alone. The period
since the reunion has been marked by a
number of ecclesiastical trials to test the
orthodoxy of Presbyterian ministers. The
first of these was the trial in 1874 of Prof.
David Swing, pastor of the Fourth Presby-
terian Church of Chicago on charges pre-
227

228 The Presbyterians

f erred by Rev. Francis L. Patton, D. D., at
that time professor in the Theological Semi-
nary of the Northwest. Professor Swing
had a poetic mind, not accustomed to log-
ical statements but to pictorial presentations
of truth. Dr. Patton thought he detected
in certain of Professor Swing's sermons
doctrines inconsistent with the Confession
of Faith. Especially did he regard the pro-
fessor as unsound in his views of the divin-
ity of Christ. He therefore brought charges
against him before the Presbytery of
Chicago. After a trial lasting six weeks
and conducted with signal ability both by
the prosecutor and by Dr. George C. Noyes,
counsel for the accused, Professor Swing
was acquitted. An appeal to Synod fol-
lowed, but a trial there was obviated by the
withdrawal of the Professor from the Pres-
byterian Church. The unhappy effects of
the trial, in the strained feelings between
brethren which it induced, remained for
decades.

Heresy Trials 229

In the last decade of the nineteenth cen-
tury the Higher Criticism entered as a factor
in the history of the Presbyterian Church.
The term is used to designate the literary
criticism of the Bible by which from in-
ternal and external evidence an effort is
made to fix the date, authorship, place and
purpose of the various writings of the Bible
and also to determine their relation to each
other. The Higher Criticism is of Dutch and
German origin and has unhappily been often
used to discredit in part or in whole the
books which it examines. While there is a
rationalistic school of higher critics who use
this method to assail the supernatural, there
is nothing in the method itself inconsistent
with evangelical views and purpose. All
depends on the spirit in which it is pursued
and the extent to which it is carried.

It first attracted prominent attention in the
Presbyterian Church in connection with the
induction of Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D. D.,\|
into the chair of "Biblical Theology" in

230 The Presbyterians

Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Professor Briggs had long been professor
of the Hebrew and Cognate languages in
which he had distinguished himself as a pro-
found scholar and an enthusiastic teacher.
When therefore Dr. Charles Butler endowed
the new professorship and named Doctor
Briggs as incumbent the Church expected
large results in Old Testament investiga-
tion. In his inaugural address the professor
announced with additional emphasis the
views he had been known to hold, at the
same time maintaining there was nothing
in them inconsistent with his ordination
vows as a Presbyterian minister. In neither
the methods nor conclusions of his critical
studies had he taken any position that was
not loyal to the Bible and the Confession of
Faith. The matter of the address was taken
up by the Presbytery of New York and in
October, 1891, the Presbytery required the
professor to answer charges tabled against
him by a prosecuting committee. The

Heresy Trials 231

Presbytery dismissed the case ** without
approving of the positions stated in his in-
augural address," but earnestly desiring the
peace and quiet of the Church. From this
decision the prosecuting committee ap-
pealed to the General Assembly. Thirty-
four members also took steps to bring the
case before the Synod of New York by
complaint. The Assembly of 1892 without
waiting the issue of the complaint by the
Synod of New York sustained the appeal
of the prosecuting committee. The case
was remanded to the Presbytery for trial on
its merits. The trial occurred in November,
1892. There were four main charges — the
chief ones being (first) that the accused
denied the inerrancy of the Bible even in
the original documents, and (second) that
he regarded the Scriptures, the Reason and
the Church as of coordinate authority. In
his response he squarely denied the charge,
asserting that while the Church and the
Reason were authorities they were not in-

232 The Presbyterians

fallible and that ''the Scripture was the
only infallible rule of faith and practice."

The Presbytery again acquitted him on
all the charges, though this time by a re-
duced majority. A second appeal to the
Assembly was had by the prosecution on
the ground of exceptions to the conduct of
the trial in Presbytery and also on the
wrongfulness of the verdict. The discus-
sions had by this time so agitated the
Church that special efforts were made in
every Presbytery to secure commissioners
on the line of this one question. So much
alarm had been excited lest the foundations
should be imperilled that the choice of dele-
gates to the Assembly resulted in a body of
unusual conservatism. The Assembly met
in Washington and "the Briggs trial" over-
shadowed every other question. The judi-
cial committee by a divided vote recom-
mended entertaining the appeal and the
trial proceeded. After both parties had
been fully heard and also members of the

Heresy Trials 233

Presbytery and of the Assembly the vote
was taken and resulted in conviction by a
vote of 379 to 1 16. A committee waited on
Professor Briggs to ask him to retract. His
reply was what was to have been expected.
He maintained his loyalty to the Scriptures
and the Standards of the Presbyterian
Church and had therefore nothing to re-
tract. He was then suspended "from the
office of a minister in the Presbyterian
Church until such time as he shall give
satisfactory evidence of repentance to the
General Assembly for the violation by him
of his ordination vow."

Dr. Briggs soon thereafter gave relief
to the Church and closed farther discussion
of his case by taking orders in the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church. He retains his chair
in Union Theological Seminary.

Another trial for heresy at about the same
time was that of Prof. Henry Preserved
Smith of Lane Theological Seminary. In
1 89 1 a paper read by him before the minis-

234 The Presbyterians

terial association of Cincinnati became a sub-
ject of heated controversy in the Presbytery.
It was not, however, till eighteen months
later that the Presbytery took judicial notice
of the alleged errors and entered on trial.
The question at issue was similar to that in
the case of Dr. Briggs, viz., the inerrancy
of the original manuscript of the Scriptures.
Doctor Smith was found guilty and sus-
pended from the ministry — until he should
renounce the errors alleged against him.

The Professor appealed to the Synod of
Ohio which sustained the lower court. The
case then went to the General Assembly.
It was the year following that in which the
main issue had been decided in regard to
Professor Briggs. There was therefore only
one thing for the Assembly to do. It con-
firmed the sentence of the Synod and Pres-
bytery— not however until after a confer-
ence with him in the hope that explanations
or concessions would modify the action of
the Assembly. A much better spirit ruled

Heresy Trials 235

the court than that which appeared in the
trial of Dr. Briggs, due in part to a feeling
already coming over the Church that trials
for heresy were of doubtful value for pre-
serving the peace of the Church, but per-
haps even more to the gracious, brotherly
and modest demeanor of the accused which
won high regard for him even from those
who entirely differed from him.

The case of Prof. A. C. McGifYert of
Union Theological Seminary claimed a good
deal of attention from the General Assembly
between 1898 and 1900. The Professor had
published a volume entitled " Christianity in
the Apostolic Age " in which positions were
taken which in the judgment of many con-
travened certain essential doctrines of the
Confession of Faith. The attention of the
Assembly was called to alleged errors in
this book by an overture from the Presby-
tery of Pittsburg. The Assembly disap-
proved of the utterances of Dr. McGiffert,
but as the Church needed peace and rest, in

236 The Presbyterians

a spirit of kindness it asked him to recon-
sider the questionable views published by
him and if he could not conform them to
the Standards of the Church peaceably to
withdraw from the Presbyterian ministry.
To this action the Professor made reply the
following year declaring that the spirit and
purpose of his book had been seriously mis-
apprehended. He repudiated the false con-
structions that had been placed upon it and
affirmed again that as to all vital and essen-
tial matters he believed his views to be in
accord with the faith of the Presbyterian
Church and of evangelical Christendom. To
this declaration the Assembly replied by re-
peating its condemnation of the statements
of the book while not questioning the sin-
cerity of Dr. McGiffert, and put forth a
declaration of doctrines on the inerrancy of
Holy Scripture, the institution of the Lord's
Supper by the Saviour and justification by
faith alone; these being the particular doc-
trines which it was believed the volume un-

Heresy Trials 237

der consideration had denied. The Assem-
bly also referred the whole matter of the
teachings of the Professor to the Presbytery
of New York (of which he was a member)
for such action as it might deem necessary.
Dr. McGiffert, however, in the interest
of the peace of the Church and his own
peace of mind gave notice to the Presbytery
of New York of his withdrawal from the
ministry of the Presbyterian Church and
asked that his name be stricken from the
roll. The Presbytery properly concluded its
duty in the matter ended. Dr. G. W. F.
Birch, however, appealed to the Assembly
of 1900 against the judgment of the Presby-
tery. The Assembly judged that it had no
authority over a minister who had left the
Church and so dismissed the appeal.

CHAPTER XIII

^ CONFESSIONAL CHANGES

Ecclesiastical trials were symptomatic
of theological unrest which finally de-
manded some adjustment of theological
standards to new conditions of thought
and life. There came slowly but steadily
; over the Church a feeling that the West-
I minster Confession of Faith no longer
\ adequately expressed the convictions of
Presbyterians. It was framed in a day of
controversy and its affirmations were
directed against what were at the time
regarded as the peculiar dangers to which
the faith of the Church was exposed.
They were a rationalistic form of Arminian-
ism and Roman Catholicism. So the
emphasis of the Confession was on the
sovereignty of God as against the assump-
238

Confessional Changes 239

tions of the latter and on free grace and
election as against the former. But with
the shifting of the lines of Christian
thought there came to be felt the need of
a change of emphasis. The errors seen
and provided against by the Westminster
divines are no longer the only or the chief.
It is no longer a question of the sovereignty
of God. The skeptical attacks of this age
inspired by science go deeper and assail the
divine existence.

Furthermore the Church has come to an
era of a dawning human brotherhood
which requires as its correlative the father-
hood and love of God. It has entered on
an active campaign to bring the world to
the knowledge and obedience of the truth
as it is in Christ and it needs therefore in
its doctrinal symbols statements regarding
missions which are wholly wanting in the
Confession of Faith because, when it was
framed, missions did not occupy the thought
of the Church. For these and other rea-

240 The Presbyterians

sons there has come over the mind of the
Church on both sides of the Atlantic a feel-
ing that something must be done — not to
discredit the historic faith — but to put it
into terminology that expresses the present
attitude and activity of the Church.

The Church in Great Britain was the first
to take action. The United Presbyterian
Church of Scotland took the lead. As far
back as 1879 it adopted "A Declaratory
Act " in which it explained the sense in
which the Confession should be under-
stood. Ten years later the English Presby-
terian Church promulgated a New Creed in
twenty-four articles as a summary of the
Westminster Confession to which Church
officers might give assent at their ordina-
tion.

About the same time the General As-
sembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America was overtured
by the Presbytery of Philadelphia to ap-
point a committee to revise the proof texts

Confessional Changes 241

which had accompanied the Shorter Cate-
chism as Biblical proof of its positions.
The Assembly recognized the fact that in
many instances the texts cited did not
prove the propositions to which they re-
ferred, and ordered a revision of texts
which was promptly and acceptably done.
This, however, was but the entering wedge.
As the Church was thus directed to a fresh
study of the Standards it became more and
more convinced that the difficulties were
not wholly nor chiefly with the proof-texts
but with the structure of the Standards
which, while in the main beyond criticism
as the noblest statement of Christian doc-
trine that had ever been given to the world,
yet were on the theological side an over-
statement of the doctrine of election and
related doctrines and on the practical side
deficient in ethical and wholly wanting in
missionary affirmations.

To the Assembly which met in New York
City in ''1889 fifteen Presbyteries sent

242 The Presbyterians

overtures asking for some change. In
response the Assembly unanimously re-
solved to overture two questions to the
Presbyteries. " ist. Do you desire a re-
vision of the Confession of Faith. 2d. If
so, in what respect and to what extent .f*"

In the discussions of the year it was
maintained by those who were opposed to
all revision that the constitution of the
Church required that the Presbyteries
should propose any alterations that were to
be made and that therefore the Assembly
had no right of original action. A sufficient
answer to this contention, however, was
the reply that the Assembly had proposed
no action but had simply asked the Presby-
teries whether they had any to propose.
The discussions in Presbyteries and in pub-
lic print were earnest and long continued.
It was no longer a question of Old School
or New. Many of the Old School leaders
were leaders also for revision. Dr. James
McCosh and Dr. J. T. Duffield of Princeton

Confessional Changes 243

College, Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, Dr. Henry
Van Dyke, Dr. Henry C. McCook, all Old
School men, were as decidedly for revision
as were such New School men as Dr.
Howard Crosby, Dr. Herrick Johnson, Dr.
Philip Schaff and others. On the other
side were some of the strongest men in the
Church. Dr. W. G. T. Shedd of Union
Seminary, Drs. Green, Warfield and C. W.
Hodge of Princeton, Dr. John DeWitt at
that time in McCormick Seminary, Dr. John
Hall and Dr. Francis L. Patton.

So general was the interest in the ques-
tion that the Assembly of 1900 had before
it answers from all the Presbyteries except
four mission Presbyteries in Asia. Seven
Presbyteries — four of them on foreign mis-
sionary ground — refused to vote. Sixty-
eight answered that no revision was de-
sired. One hundred and thirty-four desired
relief in some form. As was to be ex-
pected from the general nature of the ques-
tions submitted there was great diversity in

244 '^^^ Presbyterians

the form of replies. A large number
specified particular forms of revision.
Ninety-three Presbyteries asked for a fuller
statement of the love of God for the world.
Nearly all expressed a desire for a restate-
ment of the section regarding the salvation
of those who die in infancy.

After such a response from the Church
there was only one thing for the Assembly
to do. It appointed a committee on Re-
vision. It was wisely chosen. While a
majority were in favor of revision the op-
ponents of it had strong and generous rep-
resentation. In 1891 this committee re-
ported progress and asked that the proposed
amendments be sent to the Presbyteries for
criticism and suggestion. This was done
and so the discussions were continued for
another year. It was, however, well. Time
and argument cleared the air. It gradually
became apparent that nobody wanted any-
thing revolutionary. The historic creed of
the Presbyterian Church was not to be sur-

Confessional Changes 245

rendered. On the other hand every day
made it clearer that the Church demanded
some change in formulas which no longer
fully expressed its mind. 1

The Assembly of '1892 received the full J
and final report of the committee and|
twenty-eight overtures embodying Revision'
were sent down to the Presbyteries for
their action. Among the changes sug-
gested were the work of God's Spirit on
the hearts of the unregenerate; the omis-
sion of the statement about the unalterable
number of the elect; leaving open the ques-
tion of time in the interpretation of the days
of creation; the possible salvation of
heathen who had never heard the preached
word; the salvation of all infants dying in
infancy, and the omission of the declaration
that the Pope was the Anti-Christ. The
omission of the doctrine of preterition
asked for by over a hundred Presbyteries
was not granted and was said to be a con-
cession to the extreme conservatives in

246 The Presbyterians

order to secure a unanimous report. If so,
it failed in its object for six members of the
committee recorded their dissent.

The discussion which followed in the
Presbyteries made it evident that the pro-
posed Revision was not wholly satisfactory.
Its compromises failed to get the approval
of the conservatives. It was not definite
enough on some points to please the lib-
erals. There was also a growing sentiment
in favor of leaving the Confession as it was
and doing what the English Church had
done, — adopt a new creed which should
not supplant but should interpret the Stand-
ards. The result was that the proposed
Revision failed of adoption. One hundred
and forty-seven affirmative votes were
needed. Only four of the submitted prop-
ositions received as many as one hundred
and fourteen. A singular feature of the
voting was in the fact that thirty-one Pres-
byteries which in 1890 had voted for Re-
vision changed front and voted against it.

Confessional Changes 247

They had not of course changed in their
desire for confessional modifications.
Rather a doubt came over the mind of the
Church whether a time of so much eccle-
siastical agitation was best fitted for secur-
ing such changes.

The trend of the mind of the Church was
indicated in the next Assembly when over
sixty Presbyteries memoralized for a new
and shorter creed. The Assembly however
put the memorials aside deeming further
agitation at that time as unwise and unde-
sirable. Time demonstrated that there was
advantage in ceasing for awhile all eccle-
siastical consideration of the important sub-
ject. But the discussions did not cease.
The Church was finding her thought. It
was the settling time, always necessary be-
fore crystallization can take place. The
Church had now been advised by definite
action of the vast majority of the Presby-
teries that some revision was desired. The
Confession had been challenged as to some

248 The Presbyterians

of its most emphatic statements and the
pause that followed the action of 1892, so
far from indicating acquiescence in the old
forms, was only a time for deepening the
current that set toward new doctrinal state-
ments and giving them final direction.

Nothing further looking toward confes-
sional changes was attempted until 1900.
In 1893 indeed a committee was appointed
to prepare a consensus creed which would
be acceptable not only to the Presbyterian
Church of the United States of America but
it was hoped also to other bodies on both
sides of the Atlantic. The committee was
continued for some time but nothing came
of its deliberations. But meantime the
sentiment of the Church was moving, if
silently, yet cogently, toward revision. It
appeared in Presbyterial discussions and in
articles in the religious press. Relief was
being demanded. The Assembly of 1900
was importuned by no less than thirty-
seven Presbyteries for some sort of credal

Confessional Changes 249

revision. Some of thiem asked for revision;
some for a new creed which should be
supplementary to the Confession, and still
others for a new creed which should be a
substitute. In response to such a general
demand definite action must be taken.
Moreover, the time for such action was
opportune. It was a time of theological
peace so far as attacks on the Confession
were concerned. It was a good time to in-
quire in a calm and judicial way what form
of relief should be granted to the anxious
and burdened mind of the Church. The
Assembly therefore appointed a committee
of fifteen — eight ministers and seven elders
"to consider the whole matter of a restate-
ment of the doctrines most surely believed
among us and which are substantially em-
bodied in our Confession of Faith." The
committee was enjoined to seek light from
every available source and to report to the
next Assembly what specific action if any
should be taken.

250 The Presbyterians

To the Assembly of 1901 the committee
reported progress, was enlarged and con-
tinued to report fully and finally in 1902.
That Assembly met in the Fifth Avenue
Church of New York City and on the
twenty-second of May the committee on
revision presented its report. It consisted
of two parts. The first was textual revi-
sion of the Confession of Faith by modifi-
cation and additional and declaratory state-
ments. It was embodied in eleven overtures
to be in constitutional form submitted to
the Presbyteries for their adoption. The
amendments related to the decrees of God,
the salvation of all dying in infancy, the
good works of the unregenerate, and Christ
as the only head of the Church. Two ad-
ditional chapters were presented — one a
fuller statement of the person and work
of the Holy Spirit and another on the love
of God and missions.

But the most important work of the com-
mittee and that which was hailed with spe-

Confessional Changes 251

cial satisfaction by the Assembly was the
"Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith."
It had been prepared with a view to its be-
ing employed to give information and a
better understanding of Presbyterian doc-
trine and not with a view to its becoming a
substitute for or an alternative of the Con-
fession of Faith. It was not to be merely a
condensation of catechisms and Confession
but a compendium which should bring out
more plainly the evangelical aspects of the
faith and be imbued with a devotional
spirit. It was hoped that this "Brief State-
ment" would find general acceptance when
presented to the Assembly but no one was
prepared for the practical unanimity and
devout enthusiasm with which it was
adopted. Conservatives and liberals vied
with each other in praise of its form and
spirit and in desire to adopt it as a worthy,
and for practical purposes sufficient, expres-
sion of the truth as held by the Presbyterian
Church. It is as follows:

252 The Presbyterians

Article I. — Of God.
We believe in the ever-living God, who
is a Spirit and the Father of our Spirits; in-
finite, eternal, and unchangeable in his
being and perfections; the Lord Almighty,
most just in all his ways, most glorious in
holiness, unsearchable in wisdom and
plenteous in mercy, full of love and com-
passion, and abundant in goodness and
truth. We worship him, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, three persons in one Godhead,
one in substance and equal in power and
glory.

Article II.— Of Revelation.
We believe that God is revealed in nature,
in history, and in the heart of man; that he
has made gracious and clearer revelations
of himself to men of God who spoke as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit; and
that Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is
the brightness of the Father's glory and the
express image of his person. We grate-

Confessional Changes 253

fully receive the Holy Scriptures, given" by
inspiration to be the faithful record of
God's gracious revelations and the sure
witness to Christ, as the Word of God, the
only infallible rule of faith and life.

Article III.— Of the Eternal Purpose.

We believe that the eternal, wise, holy,
and loving purpose of God embraces all
events, so that while the freedom of man
is not taken away nor is God the author of
sin, yet in his providence he makes all
things work together in the fulfilment of
his sovereign design and the manifestation
of his glory; wherefore, humbly acknowl-
edging the mystery of this truth, we trust
in his protecting care and set our hearts to
do his will.

Article IV.— Of the Creation.
We believe that God is the creator, up-
holder, and governor of all things; that he
is above all his works and in them all; and
that he made man in his own image, meet

254 'T^^ Presbyterians

for fellowship with him, free and able to
choose between good and evil, and forever
responsible to his Maker and Lord.

Article V.— Of the Sin of Man.
We believe that our first parents, being
tempted, chose evil, and so fell away from
God and came under the power of sin, the
penalty of which is eternal death; and we
confess that, by reason of this disobedi-
ence, we and all men are born with a sin-
ful nature, that we have broken God's law,
and that no man can be saved but by his
grace.

Article VI.— Of the Grace of God.

We believe that God, out of his great
love for the world, has given his only be-
gotten Son to be the Saviour of sinners,
and in the gospel freely offers his all-
sufficient salvation to all men. And we
praise him for the unspeakable grace
wherein he has provided a way of eternal
life for all mankind.

Confessional Changes 255

Article VII. — Of Election.
We believe that God, from the beginning,
in his own good pleasure, gave to his Son
a people, an innumerable multitude, chosen
in Christ unto holiness, service and salva-
tion; we believe that all who come to years
of discretion can receive this salvation only
through faith and repentance; and we be-
lieve that all who die in infancy, and all
others given by the Father to the Son who
are beyond the reach of the outward
means of grace, are regenerated and saved
by Christ through the Spirit, who works
when and where and how he pleases.

Article VIII.— Of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in and confess the Lord Jesus
Christ, the only Mediator between God and
man, who being the Eternal Son of God,
for us men and for our salvation became
truly man, being conceived by the Holy
Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, with-
out sin; unto us he has revealed the Father,

256 The Presbyterians

by his Word and Spirit making known the
perfect will of God; for us he fulfilled all
righteousness and satisfied eternal justice,
offering himself a perfect sacrifice upon the
cross to take away the sin of the world;
for us he rose from the dead and ascended
into heaven, where he ever intercedes for
us; in our hearts, joined to him by faith,
he abides forever as the indwelling Christ;
over us, and over all for us, he rules;
wherefore, unto him we render love, obedi-
ence, and adoration as our Prophet, Priest,
and King forever.

Article IX.— Of Faith and Repentance.
We believe that God pardons our sins
and accepts us as righteous, solely on the
ground of the perfect obedience and sacri-
fice of Christ, received by faith alone; and
that this saving faith is always accom-
panied by repentance, wherein we confess
and forsake our sins with full purpose of,
and endeavor after, a new obedience to God.

Confessional Changes 257

Article X. — Of the Holy Spirit
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord
and Giver of Life, who moves everywhere
upon the hearts of men, to restrain them
from evil and to incite them unto good, and
whom the Father is ever willing to give
unto all who ask him. We believe that he
has spoken by holy men of God in making
known his truth to men for their salvation;
that, through our exalted Saviour, he was
sent forth in power to convict the world of
sin, to enlighten men's minds in the knowl-
edge of Christ, and to persuade and enable
them to obey the call of the gospel; and
that he abides with the Church, dwelling in
every believer as the spirit of truth, of holi-
ness, and of comfort.

Article XI. — Of the New Birth and the
New Life.

We believe that the Holy Spirit only is
the author and source of the new birth; we
rejoice in the new life, wherein he is given

258 The Presbyterians

unto us as the seal of sonship in Christ,
and keeps loving fellowship with us, helps
us in our infirmities, purges us from our
faults, and ever continues his transforming
work in us until we are perfected in the
likeness of Christ, in the glory of the life to
come.

Article XII.— Of the Resurrection and
THE Life to Come.

We believe that in the life to come the
spirits of the just, at death made free from
sin, enjoy immediate communion with God
and the vision of his glory; and we con-
fidently look for the general resurrection
in the last day, when the bodies of those
who sleep in Christ shall be fashioned in
the likeness of the glorious body of their
Lord, with whom they shall live and reign
forever.

Article Xlll. — Of the Law of God.
We believe that the law of God, revealed
in the Ten Commandments, and more

Confessional Changes 259

clearly disclosed in the words of Christ, is
forever established in truth and equity, so
that no human work shall abide except it be
built on this foundation. We believe that
God requires of every man to do justly, to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with his
God; and that only through this harmony
with the will of God shall be fulfilled that
brotherhood of man wherein the kingdom
of God is to be made manifest.

Article XIV.— Of the Church and the
Sacraments.

We believe in the Holy Catholic Church
of which Christ is the only Head. We be-
lieve that the Church Invisible consists of all
the redeemed, and that the Church Visible
embraces all who profess the true religion
together with their children. We receive
to our communion all who confess and
obey Christ as their divine Lord and
Saviour, and we hold fellowship with all
believers in him.

26o The Presbyterians

We receive the sacraments of baptism
and the Lord's Supper, alone divinely es-
tablished and committed to the Church,
together with the Word, as means of
grace; made effectual only by the Holy
Spirit, and always to be used by Christians
with prayer and praise to God.

Article XV. — Of the Last Judgment.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will
come again in glorious majesty to judge the
world and to make a final separation be-
tween the righteous and the wicked. The
wicked shall receive the eternal award of
their sins, and the Lord will manifest the
glory of his mercy in the salvation of his
people and their entrance upon the full en-
joyment of eternal life.

Article XVI. — Of Christian Service and

THE Final Triumph.

We believe that it is our duty, as servants

and friends of Christ, to do good unto all

men, to maintain the public and private

Confessional Changes 261

worship of God, to hallow the Lord's Day,
to preserve the sanctity of the family, to
uphold the just authority of the State, and
so to live in all honesty, purity, and charity
that our lives shall testify of Christ. We
joyfully receive the word of Christ, bidding
his people go into all the world and make
disciples of all nations, and declare unto
them that God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself, and that he will have
all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. We confidently
trust that by his power and grace all his
enemies and ours shall be finally overcome,
and the kingdoms of this world shall be
made the kingdom of our God and of his
Christ. In this faith we abide; in this
service we labor; and in this hope we pray,

Even so, come. Lord Jesus.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TO-DAY

Thfiee words describe the Presbyterian
Church of to-day. It is a'/ Conservative
Church, a^'Missionary Church and an Irenic^f^
Church. Along these lines its life is now
developing.

Though there have been marked theolog-
ical changes, yet as the result of them all the
Presbyterian Church is still conservative.
That with other Churches it has made prog-
ress in its interpretations of truth goes
almost without saying. The Westminster
Standards no longer fully measure the con-
tents of its faith. It still holds to them but
it has overflowed them. It is a Calvinistic
Church but the terminology in which that
system was presented two centuries and a

half ago no longer satisfies either the
262

Presbyterian Church To-day 263

scholarship or the life of the Church.
Hence the discussions on Revision running
through two decades and hence the conclu-
sions reached in the Revision and the new
statement of doctrine given in the preceding
chapter. By them it appears the system
remains but it is expressed in forms better
suited to the demands of this age and more
perfectly uttering the Church's last thought
concerning the character of God and its
own duty.

While thus the Presbyterian Church con-
tinues to be conservative, it realizes that the
armor that is centuries old is not best fitted
for the present campaign and that new
weapons of thought must be forged to
meet the new enemies that march against
the tfUTfi. The enemies against which the
Westminster Standards aimed their doc-
trinal statements have not indeed wholly
disappeared— the divine right of kings and
the assumptions of the Papacy are still in
the field. But there are more deadly foes

264 The Presbyterians

to evangelistic religion than these. The
line of battle has shifted. Questions of the
divine existence, the possibility of revela-
tion, the development of man without a
Creator and the uncertainty of any future
at all— these and kindred problems confront
the Church. And it may therefore well be
argued that not only should the Church
stand by statements already accepted but it
should make further statements of truth to
meet new conditions. While therefore for
the present the Church contents itself with
a moderate revision and a brief creed ex-
pressed in general terms it is likely that the
spirit of inquiry which has resulted in pres-
ent changes will require further progress
and additional statements. And all this
may be without surrendering the historic
position of conservatism which has ever
characterized the Presbyterian Church.

The present theological attitude of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America applies substantially to the other

Presbyterian Church To-day 265

divisions of the Church in this country.
Thus the United Presbyterian Church,
strongly Calvinistic and accepting the West-
minster Standards as its own, supplements
them by what is called a ''Testimony of
the Church" which explains, amplifies and
applies the Standards to present conditions
of Church and country. One of the articles
of this "Testimony" relates to Psalmody.
The psalms of David were given by inspira-
tion, this Church declares, for use in public
worship. Being inspired they are better
for purposes of worship than any unin-
spired hymnology can possibly be. The
United Presbyterian Church therefore con-
fines itself to the psalms for its expressions
of praise. In the early history of the
Church the Scottish version sometimes
called " Rouse's " was used exclusively. A
new version, however, has now been made,
approved by the General Assembly, and is
commonly used by the Church. A com-
mittee of Reformed Churches in this coun-

266 The Presbyterians

try is now engaged in preparing a new
metrical version of the Psalms which it is
hoped may be a common bond binding still
closer together the various branches of the
Presbyterian family.

The Covenanter or Reformed Church uses
only the Westminster Standards as its ex-
pression of doctrine. It has, however, a
number of peculiar rules, as close Commun-
ion, opposition to secret societies and re-
fusal to allow its members to discharge
civic duties because the government has not
formally recognized its responsibility to the
divine government of Jesus Christ.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church also
adopts the Confession of Faith but only
after many changes and amendments. It
occupies a middle ground between the
extremes of Calvinism and Arminianism.

The Presbyterian Church of the United
States (South) has made no revision of
Westminster Standards, accepting them as
a full and sufficient statement of doctrine.

Presbyterian Church To-day 267

They organized as a separate Church on the
question of the spirituality of the Church
and this doctrine they regard as vital, though
extracts might be taken from action of their
General Assembly in which they too ex-
pressed themselves on national affairs. This
Church whenever possible separates the col-
ored people into Presbyteries and Synods of
their own — not it is claimed on any "color
line" theory, but because it believes it best
for colored and white that they should be
ecclesiastically separate. This much then
briefly as to the present theological attitude
of the various branches of the Presbyterian
Church in this country.
/ Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic
of the Presbyterian Church of to-day is its
rnissionary character. In preceding chap-
ters it is shown that the Church has always
given its best energies to the extension of
Christian influences and institutions. But
during the past few decades the idea of
world-wide evangelization has taken firm

268 The Presbyterians

hold and plans thorough and far-reach-
ing have been made to accomplish this
end. The Presbyterian Church conducts
its missionary and philanthropic work
chiefly through eight Boards to whose
organization reference has already been
made.

The first of these, the Board of Home
Missions, was organized in 1802 and has had
a large share in the religious development of
the country. Figures can give but the faint-
est idea of the power of this great Board as
it has gone with the advancing pioneer line
across all the parallels of our country. But
they suggest more than they can tell. Since
its organization about 75,000 commissions
have been issued to missionaries — each one
representing as a rule a year of service.
The amount expended on this branch of
Christian work in our country has been
about $24,000,000. It was estimated by
Dr. Henry Kendall that nine-tenths of all
Presbyterian churches have had a missionary

Presbyterian Church To-day 269

origin and been directly or indirectly founded
by this Board.

At the present time the work extends
from Alaska to Cuba and Porto Rico. Many
of the eastern states conduct their own
home mission work, but the Board of
Home Missions in its last report names
1,350 missionaries with 490 mission school
teachers working in forty states and terri-
tories.

The importance of this work for the re-
generation of our own country becomes
manifest when we consider the elements
which it comprises. Our immigration now
reaches nearly a million a year and by far
the larger part comes from European peo-
ples who are strangers to the ideals — civil
or religious — which so far have ruled our
land. Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Slavs and
kindred races from southern and eastern
Europe increase the unhealthful and perilous
congestion of great cities and add explosives
of discontent and anarchism to the popula-

270 The Presbyterians

tions of mining communities and logging
camps.

Alien peoples in the West increase our
dangers — the chief est of these being the ter-
rible Mormon system, which controlling
several states and territories reaches across
the land in missionary adventure and threat-
ens to get political control of the country.
The mission field of southern mountains
must not be forgotten. There is no more
important missionary duty than that of re-
building the Christian character of original
Americans. And the three million moun-
taineers of the South are such Americans —
having special claims on Christian effort
alike by their inheritance, their patriotic
service and their undoubted capacity.

Then there are 250,000 aboriginal Amer-
icans in the United States. They have long
constituted a governmental problem. The
solution of it is through the school and the
Church. Some of the most interesting and
encouraging chapters of recent missionary

Presbyterian Church To-day 271

history are those which recount the labors
of Presbyterian missionaries among the In-
dians. That the Indians are capable of re-
ceiving Christian truth and living Christian
lives the story of the transformation of the
Sioux, Nez Perces, Pimas and Papagoes
abundantly testifies.

The work of home missions could not
be prosecuted with the vigor and success
which in late years have specially character-
ized it if the Board had not had the power-
ful auxiliary called at its organization in
1878 "The Woman's Executive Commit-
tee" but now known as ''The Woman's
Board of Home Missions." The degraded
condition of what are called "our excep-
tional populations " — the Indians, Mexicans,
Mormons and Alaskans — especially of the
women and children, appealed powerfully
to the Church to do more for them than
could be done under the charter of the
Board of Home Missions. They needed
mission schools. Dr. Sheldon Jackson first

272 The Presbyterians

prominently brought this subject to the at-
tention of the Church in the columns of
The Rocky Mountain Presbyterian. The
women of the Church responded to these
appeals and organized to undertake the sup-
port of this work. It had a feeble begin-
ning—the first year only $3,138 being
raised, but it has grown so rapidly that in
1902 there were 490 missionaries and teach-
ers, and 145 mission schools under its care
with 10,036 pupils, $^12,62^ bemg ex-
pended in their support. The Board has
acquired property in chapels, schoolhouses,
manses and teacher's homes of the aggre-
gate value of $875,640. Forced by circum-
stances the work has led upward toward
higher educational institutions. There are
now in successful operation twelve schools
in which academic work is done — also one
college, one collegiate institute and one
normal collegiate institute. These all save
one have grown out of little mission
schools.

Presbyterian Church To-day 273

Considering this mission field with its
vital present and its commanding future the
Church will do well to act on the word of
Professor Phelps when he said, "Spiritual
strategy demands that the evangelization of
this country should be kept ahead of every
other movement for the conversion of the
world."

The work of the Board of Foreign Mis-
sions is looming large before the thought
and conscience of the Church. The move-
ment began at the ** Haystack Prayer Meet-
ing" at Williams College in 1806. That
was the germ of the American Board or-
ganized in 1 8 10, which for so many years
led the foreign missionary work of the
churches of this country. From 181 1 until
1837, the Presbyterian Church availed itself
of this great agency for carrying the gospel
to the heathen world. In the latter year
the Board of Foreign Missions of the Pres-
byterian Church in the United States of
America was organized, absorbing the

274 The Presbyterians

Western Foreign Missionary Society, which
had been organized in Pittsburg in 1831.
In its first report in 1838 it had fifteen mis-
sionaries with twenty-three assistants and
its total receipts were $45,498. Its growth
was rapid. After the division the New
School Branch continued its alliance with
the American Board. At the Reunion in
1870 the whole foreign missionary work of
the Church fell into the hands of the Board
of Foreign Missions. The vast extent of it
may be inferred from the statistics given to
the General Assembly of 1902. It has sta-
tions in Africa, China, India, Japan, Korea,
Mexico, Persia, Philippine Islands, Siam,
Laos, South and Central America and Syria.
There are 121 principal stations and more
than 1,200 outstations, with a total force of
American missionaries (men and women)
of 749 and 1,882 native helpers. There are
610 organized churches, with 44,443 com-
municants. There are over 26,000 pupils in
mission schools. There are thirty-three

Presbyterian Church To-day 275

hospitals and fifty-one dispensaries, hav-
ing treated 289,363 patients. The money
received for this work in 1902 was
$1,086,341.

As in home missions, so in foreign, the
consecrated and organized work of the
women of the Church counts largely to-
ward the great result. There are seven
woman's boards located in different parts of
the country auxiliary to the Board of For-
eign Missions. They have no share in the
administration but through their societies
furnish information, arouse interest and
gather funds. Their receipts in 1902 were
$370,479.

The Presbyterian Board of Publication
and Sabbath-School Work has a twofold
function. It was primarily organized to
provide good literature for the Church.
Presbyterians are readers. Early in the his-
tory of the Church in this country various
ways were devised for meeting the general
craving for good books. In many of the

276 The Presbyterians

Presbyteries, circulating libraries on a small
scale were provided, from which ministers
and others might draw. In some cases
churches provided a manse furnished with a
library. These projects were however in-
sufficient to meet the growing demand for
the circulation of good books. The Amer-
ican Bible Society was organized in 1816,
and the General Assembly at once expressed
its pleasure that such a society had been
formed and commended it to the confidence
of the churches. While thus the printing
of Bibles has been left to the Bible Society
the Church felt increasingly the need of pro-
viding suitable religious reading for its peo-
ple. During the division both Old and New
School engaged in this work. At the Re-
union the two branches consolidated their
publishing business in the Presbyterian
Board of Publication. It is a business en-
terprise and successful in a business way.
But in 1887 a new department was created
for the purpose of organizing Sunday-

Presbyterian Church To-day 277

schools and supplying them with suitable
literature. This is a distinctively mission-
ary agency and appeals to the Church for
its support. It issues lesson helps for all
grades of pupils and for teachers. It carries
on its Sabbath-school missionary work in
thirty-one states and territories and had in
1902, ninety-seven missionaries who organ-
ized 773 Sabbath-schools and reorganized
338, making a total of 1,1 11 schools, with
an aggregate membership of 35,944 schol-
ars. It reports a total of churches grow-
ing out of these mission schools since the
department was created of 1,094 of which
number 651 are Presbyterian and 443 are
churches of other denominations.

The Board of Church Erection is closely
affiliated with that of Home Missions.
Church buildings represent the permanent
element in Christian missions. When a
building is erected the Church becomes an
institution. The need of suitable housing
for pioneer congregations early pressed on

278 The Presbyterians

the heart of the Church. As early as 1775
the church in Salem, Mass., having been
burned, the Presbytery of Boston and the
Synod of Massachusetts issued an appeal
for help. On the organization of the Board
of Home Missions in 1816 the matter of
church building was pressed on the atten-
tion of the General Assembly as a necessary
part of home missions. The Assembly
urged special collections for this object.
Committees were appointed to have special
care of this part of mission work and to
keep it before the Church. The Old School
Assembly of 1844 gave the Board of Home
Missions specific instructions in regard to
the management of this department. In
1855 the Board of Church Erection of the
Old School branch was established in St.
Louis on the principle that it should be near
to the churches to be aided. The New
School had a "Committee of Church Ex-
tension " and located it in Philadelphia. At
the Reunion both Boards were merged in

Presbyterian Church To-day 279

the present Board of Church Erection and
located in New York.

In 1902 this Board reported receipts
aggregating $193,275. Appropriations as
grants or loans had been made to 259
churches in the sum of $205,269 — the
largest sum so appropriated in any one year
in the history of the Board. It is distrib-
uted in forty-one states and territories in-
cluding Porto Rico.

Another agency which takes part in the
general home mission work of the Church
is the Board for Freedmen. The duty of
the Church to the colored people has al-
ways been recognized — North and South.
The result of the Civil War suddenly threw
upon the Christian Church the weightiest
responsibility for the education and salva-
tion of these people, for they were no
longer slaves but fellow-citizens of the re-
public. They must be fitted for their place.
During, as well as after the War, Christian
people were realizing the importance of

28o The Presbyterians

speedy action. The churches in the South
could do little. They had many problems
on hand and they were poor. To some ex-
tent also doubtless the change of the negro's
status took away their interest in his future.
In 1865 in both Old and New School As-
semblies the welfare of the Freedmen was
considered and committees appointed to
inaugurate missions among them. At the
Reunion in 1870 the whole work was put
into the hands of a Board with headquarters
at Pittsburg. This Board has had a fruitful
history. It has sent out missionaries, es-
tablished schools and commissioned teach-
ers for them and, into regions so destitute
or scattered in population as to render regu-
lar church work inexpedient, it has sent
Bible readers and evangelists. It has over
200 missionaries under commission and en-
rolled last year 353 churches with a mem-
bership of 21,341. The entire number of
workers including Bible readers and teach-
ers is 421. It has about eighty schools —

Presbyterian Church To-day 281

one of which, Biddle University, gives a
full college course and has besides a theo-
logical department which in 1902 reported
a faculty of four professors and twelve
students.

The Presbyterian Church insists on high
qualifications for its ministers. From thej
first she has striven for educational oppor-
tunities for her people. Before the public
school system was in operation parochial
schools were established wherever possible.
It early became evident that an educated
ministry would require special attention to
providing educational institutions. Prince-
ton College grew out of this conviction.
The line of Presbyterian Colleges now
stretching across the continent had in every
case a similar origin. In addition to schools
however it was soon apparent that in many
cases young men of piety and promise who
were looking forward to the ministry would
need help to enable them to take the long
and expensive training which the Church

282 The Presbyterians

required of her ministers. Hence arose the
demand for a Board of Education. The
first plan looking to this end dates back as
far as 1771. It was not however until 1819
that the Assembly established a general
Board. Its object was to seek suitable
candidates for the ministry and to help them
when necessary in their preparation for
their work.

During the past few years there has been
a marked decline in the number of candi-
dates for the ministry. It is largely caused
by the prizes which business offers to capa-
ble men. But, whatever the cause, it be-
hooves a Church that would keep pace
with the enlarging fields for Christian serv-
ice to press upon educated Christian young
men the opportunities which the times
offer to those who have consecration
enough to meet them.

Another Board made necessary by the
same demand for thoroughly trained men
for the ministry is "The Board of Aid for

Presbyterian Church To-day 283

Colleges and Academies." For a number
of years the conviction had been growing
that the Church needed a special agency to
plant and foster institutions of learning
which should be decidedly Christian in
character. This conviction led to the or-
ganization of the Board in 1883. Through
its influence many academies and colleges
have been founded throughout all the west-
ern region. During the year 1901-2 the
income of this Board was |2i2,ooo which
has been expended in appropriations to
twenty-two colleges and academies.

The Presbyterian Church not only helps
to prepare men for its service; it takes care
of them when their working days are over.
In the early history of the Church special
funds were sporadically provided for the
support of aged ministers. A plan of min-
isterial life insurance was begun as early as
1755. It was then called **The Widow's
Fund." Its constitution has been amended
and it is now known as the Presbyterian

284 The Presbyterians

Ministers' Fund, and does a safe ministerial
insurance business.

But in 1849 the Assembly set apart a fund
to be distributed by the trustees of the As-
sembly *'in aiding disabled ministers and
the widows and orphans of deceased min-
isters." In 1876 this fund was put in charge
of a Board known as "The Board of Min-
isterial Relief." The scope of its work was
enlarged when in 1889 the Assembly directed
the Board to include in the list of those hav-
ing claims on its funds "such female mis-
sionaries and lay missionaries as may have
become disabled in the service of the
Church." Its invested funds now amount
to 11,215,526. In the year 1902 it had on
its roll 367 ministers, 473 widows and
thirty-six orphan families. It also has a
number of "Homes" where those entitled
to its care find a resting-place in declining
years.

Besides these Boards the Assembly has
two important committees. The Perma-

Presbyterian Church To-day 285

nent Committee on Temperance, established
in 1881 seeks to promote temperance reform
and to quicken the Church, by circulating
literature and by action of Church courts, to
an appreciation of the evils of intemperance
and the need of measures for the suppres-
sion of the liquor traffic.

The committee on Systematic Beneficence
constituted was in 1879. It aims to educate
the Church in regular systematic and propor-
tionate giving. Its work is of the utmost
importance. Questions of finance in connec-
tion with the work of the Church would be
easily and quickly solved if such giving
were the universal rule.

The other divisions of the Church have
similar organizations for the extension of
their work. The Presbyterian Church in
the United States (South) prefers how-
ever to style its missionary agencies "Com-
mittees of the Assembly" rather than
Boards. The women are organized for
mission work also in the Presbyterian

286 The Presbyterians

Church in the United States as well as in
the Cumberland, in the Reformed Church
in America, the Reformed Church in the
United States and the Synod of the Re-
formed Presbyterian Church.

The Presbyterian Church is not only thus
well equipped in its own machinery but it
supplies its full share of the gifts necessary
to carry on the philanthropic work that is
outside of denominational lines. Thus its
gifts to the Bible Society and Tract Society
are large and increasing. It is actively
identified with Young Men's Christian As-
sociations and Young Women's Christian
Associations. It helps freely in matters of
civic reform. Recently there has been
organized a National Federation of Churches
which aims to secure cooperation among
all churches for the betterment of society.
This Federation has no better friend than
the Presbyterian Church. It is also the
banner Church in the number of societies
of Christian Endeavor in its communion.

Presbyterian Church To-day 287

Thus while staunchly loyal to all that has
made the historic glory of the denomination
it is catholic in both its sympathies and its
deeds, striving with all saints to bring into
this world the kingdom ''which is Right-
eousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost."

While the Presbyterian Church has ever
been positive in its statements of adherence
to the Truth as God has given it to see the
Truth, it has also sought not only to ''livei
peaceably with all men " but also to cooper-/
ate with all good people in all the work for
which churches are organized. It has been
a leader in all interdenominational move-'
ments. During the last decade the Gen-
eral Assembly has had a "Committee on
Comity and Cooperation" whose duty it
was to seek closer fellowship with other
religious bodies especially on missionary
ground and so to economize and concen-
trate all Christian forces for the advance-
ment of the Kingdom of Christ. The

288 The Presbyterians

Assembly has also repeatedly required its
missionary Boards to administer their af-
fairs with reference to the rights of other
denominations and as far as possible in co-
operation with them.

There is at the present time a marked
tendency toward the union of affiliated
bodies ; and this tendency has the sym-
pathy and help of the Presbyterian Church.
"The Alliance of Reformed Churches" it is
hoped will strengthen this tendency and
ultimately bring about the organic union of
some at least of the branches of the great
Presbyterian family. Six of these branches
have already united in a plan of cooperation
on home mission fields by which they agree
that no church or mission shall be estab-
lished in small communities where the field
is fully occupied by any other branch of
the Church. And, broader than this, the
Presbyterian Church rejoices in the success
of every evangelical Church and has been
directed by her highest church court to

Presbyterian Church To-day 289

further first the common interests of the
Kingdom of Christ and push her own work
in subjection to that larger idea.

We have come to a time not of theolog-
ical rest, for the vital questions of religion
were never more earnestly debated than
now — but to a time of increasing brother-
hood, of mutual charity and of faith in the
coming of the Kingdom by the federated
work of all the Churches of Christ. For
this brotherhood and charity and faith the
Presbyterian Church of to-day stands. She
has not weakened in her proclamation of
Truth, nor in her devotion to the form of it
which has been her historic glory. She
believes with all her might in the principles
announced by John Calvin and which on
two continents have been the inspiration
for civil and religious freedom. She re-
joices in her mission to avow, defend and
extend those principles. But she longs for
"the unity of the faith in the bonds of
love" and for that victory of Christianity

290 The Presbyterians

which will come fully only when all de-
nominational banners gather around the
banner that is Love in the marred hand of
him who rides gloriously to his Kingdom.
Thus may she ever keep her faith with her
past and her loyalty to her Master.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America, by Charles
Hodge, D. D.

American Presbyterianism, by Charles Augustus
Briggs, D. D.

Annals of the American Pulpit, by William B.
Sprague, D. D.

Encyclopaedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America, by Alfred Nevin, D. D.

Presbyterians, by George P. Hays, D. D.

American Church History, (Volume 6) Robert Ellis ,
Thompson, D. D.

History of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America, by Ezra H, Gillette, D. D.

Presbyterians and the Revolution, by Willlam P.
Breed, D. D.

History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in
America, by Rankin W. Glasgow, D. D.

History of the Associate Reformed Synod of the South,
by Robert Lath an, D. D.

History of the Cumberland Church, by B. W. McDoN-
nald, D. D., LL. D.

291

292 Bibliography

Centennial Historical Discourses, by Alexander T.
Magill, D. D., and others.

Historical Discourses on Presbyterians and the Revolu-
tion, by William P. Breed, D. D.

A History of the New School, by Samuel J. Baird
D. D.

Historical Contributions, by Cortland Van Rens.
selaer, D. D.

Presbyterian Reunion and Memorial Volume.

Index

Abingdon, Va., 95.

Presbytery of, 87.
Act and Testimony, The, 181, 182.
Adams, William, 216.
Adelbert University, 158.
Adopting Act, 65-67, 72, 73, 74, 85.
Alabama, 198, 211.
Alexander, Archibald, 97, 145, 148, 149.

James W., 177.
Alison, Francis, 72,

Alleghany Mountains, 58, 100, no, in, 112, 118, 133.
Allegheny, 114, 168.

Alliance of Reformed Churches, 224, 288.
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,

172, 219.
American Bible Society, 163, 286.

organized, 276.
American Educational Society, 187, 193.
American Independence, origin, 14.
American Tract Society, 286.
Anderson, Isaac, 168.

James, 53.

Wm. C, 205,
Andrews, Jedediah, 42, 43, 46, 70, 79.
Arianism, 62.

Arminianism, 32, 178, 338, 266.
Athens, Ohio, 158.
Atwater, L. H., 215.

293

294 Index

Auburn Theological Seminary, 167.
Augusta, Ga., 206.
Baker, Daniel, 222.
Balch, Hezekiah, 109.
Baldwin, Rev. Methuselah, 127.
Baltimore, Lord, 40.

Md., 225.
Bancroft, 14, 97.
Baptism of infants, 38.
Baptists, 145, 168.
Barbadoes, 40.

Barnes, Albert, 176, 177, 183, 187, I98, 219.
Beatty, Charles, 90, 112.
Beecher, Lyman, 169, 178.
Belfast, 62.
Beloit College, 159.
Beman, 185.

Bibliography, 24, 25, 37, 38, 80, 98, 102, 109, 117, 133.
Birch, George W. F., 237.
Birnie, James G., 198.
Blackburn, Gideon, 133.

University, 159.
Blair, John, 83.

Samuel, 71, 83.
Boston, 22, 82,
Blue Ridge, The, 87, 97.

Board of Aid for Colleges and Academies, 283.
Board of Church Erection, growth, 279.

organization, 277, 278.
Board of Education, 92, 93, 166, 171.

early beginning, 118.

organized, 282.
Board of Foreign Missions, 94, 219.

growth, 274.

organization, 273.
Board for Freedmen, 279, 281.
Board of Home Missions, 219, 221.

growth, 268-273.

organization, 162, 268.

Index 295

Board of Publication and Sabbath-School \York, 93, 219.

growth, 275-277.

organization, 275,
Board of Ministerial Relief, 284.
Brainard, John, 89, 1 12.
Brandy wine, 72.

Breckenridge, Robt. J., 182, 185, 191.
Brevard, Ephraim, 97.

" Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith," 1902, 251-261.
Briggs, Charles A., 229, 233, 234, 235.
Brown, Matthew, 149.
Buffalo, 117.
Butler, Charles, 230.
Caldwell, David, 150.
Calvin, John, 9, 14, 16, 19, 31, 99.
Calvinism, 13, 213.
Calvinists, 14, 266,
Campbell, Colonel Wm., 98, ICX),
Cannonsburg, 116.
Canonsburg Academy, 149.
Carlisle, 108.

Presbytery of, 87.
Carolinas, The, 22, 40, 46, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 143,

ISO-
Synod of, 120, 134.

Carroll College, 159.

Carter, Robert, 216.

Catechism, 32.

Charles River, 35.

Charleston, S. C, 22.

Chicago, 170, 227, 228.
Presbytery of, 228.

Chillicothe, Ohio, 157.
Presbytery of, 201.

Clinton, Gen., 98.

Church Courts, 29.

Church Extension Committee, 196.

Cincinnati, 178, 182, 233, 234.
beginnings, 153, 154.

296

Index

Clark, John, 1 1 8.
Cleaveland, Col., 100.
Cleveland, 158.

beginnings, 156.
Coligny, Admiral, 20.

Confession of Faith, 61, 85, 93, 139, 214, 216, 238, 240,
251-261.

Revision, 239, 242, 251.

(Ref.), Adopted by Parliament, 16.
Congregationalism, 26, 46.

in Connecticut, 87, 127.

in Long Island, 51.
Congregational Churches, 87, 195.
Colonial period, 47, 56.
Columbus, Ohio, 157.
Columba, 15.

Comity, 127, 128, 164, 287.
Connecticut, 44, 46, 53, 58, 151, 154, I5S» '8$.

Congregationalism in, 87, 127.
Constitution, English, 14.
Consubstantiation, 31.
Continental Congress, 100.
Cornbury, Lord, 53.
Covenanters, 99, 173.

Covenanter Church, (Reformed Church), 266.
Cowpens, 100.
Cox, Samuel Hanson, 176.
Craighead, 64.

Alexander, 105.

Robert, 63.

Thomas, 63.
Crosby, Howard, 243.
Cross, Robert, 70, 72.
Cross Creek, 117.
Culdees, 15.
Cumberland, Presbytery of, 1 39.

Presbyterians, 138, 140, 141, 266.

Presbyterians, (colored), 140.
Cummins, Chas., 109.

Index 297

Cuyler, Theodore L., 243.

Davies, Samuel, 43, 88.

Day, Henry, 216.

Declaration of Independence, 98, lOI.

Declaration and Testimony, 209.

Delaware, 19, 53, 145.

Delfthaven, 15.

Denton, Richard, 26, 39.

De Witt, John, 243.

Dickinson, 185.

Jonathan, 54, 55, 57, 64, 72, 76, 83.
Moses, 57.
Dickson, Cyrus, 221.
Dissenters, 26.
Division of 1741, 57, 68, 71, 76, 77-80, 86.

of 1837, 175, 176, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188,
189, 192.
Doak, John, 133.
Samuel, 132.
Dodd, Thaddeus, 116.
Doddridge, Philip, 93.
Dodge, William E., 216.
Donegal, Ireland, 40.
Presbytery of, 74.
Doty, Francis, 38.
Drake, Charles D., 215.
Dublin, Presbytery of, 44.
Duffield, Geo,, 90, 107, 112, 185.
Duffield, J. T., 242.
Dunlap, James, 118.

Thos., 98.
Dutch, The, 26, 27, 39, 97.
New York Governor, 38.
pastors, 39.
Dutchess County, Presbytery of, 87.
East Chester, N. Y., 56.
Edict of Nantes, 20.

revocation of, 21.
Edict of Paris, 19.

298

Index

Edict of Toleration, 21.
Edinburgh, 16.
Educators, 149.
Education, 56.

classical schools, 109, 116, 117, 167.

early colleges, 144, 152, 158, 159, 166.

importance of, 169.

popular, 14.
Edwards, Jonathan, 54, 175.
Ellinwood, F. F,, 220.
Elliot, David, 185, 218.
Eliot, John, 25-35, 37.
Elizabeth Isles, 37.
Elizabeth town, 54, 72, 82.

England, 11, 13, 14, 18, 22, 23, 26, 27, 35, 37, 39, 42,
46, 57, 84.

American claims, iii.

Church of, 24, 87, 95.
English Presbyterians, 88, 99.

Church, intolerance of, 40.

Monarchs, 20.

Presbyterians in America, 34.

Revolution, 46,
Episcopal Church, 52, 53, 54, 100.
Erie Canal, 156.
Erie, Presbytery of, 165.
Established Church of England, 17.

Scotland, 17.
Europe, 43,
European origins, ii.
Evangelists, 71, 75, 76, 81, 82.
Evans, Thos. 57.
Faggs Manor, 71.
Federation of Churches, 164.

National, 286, 289.
Farrand, J. S., 216.
Fincastle, 134.
Finley, Samuel, 83.
Fisher, Samuel W., 216.

Index 299

Foreign Missions, 162, 163.

Board of, 94, 219, 273, 274.
Fowler, P. H., 218.
Fox, Matthew, 222.
France, ii, 13, 19, 20, 21, 27.
France, American claims, ill.
Francis, W. M., 216.
Freedom, 14.
Free government, 13.
Free Will, 32.

French and Indian War, II2, 1 15.
French Language, 22.
Ft, Pitt, 90, 112, 152.
Ft. Sumpter, 202.
General Assembly, loi, 137, 138, 142.

Centennial 1888, 225.

first meeting, 120.

Reunion, (1869), 217,

on Revision, (1889), 242.

on Revision, (1900), 243.
General Synod, Reform d Presbyterian, 214.
Genesee, 165.

Synod of, 187.
Geneva, 14, 26.

Synod of, 167, 187.
Georgia, Augusta, 206.
Germany, 22.
Gillespie, 46, 72.
Government, democratic, 14.
Great Britain, 89, 97.

Green, Ashbel, 147, 148, 149, 177, 182, 185.
Green's History of English people, 13.
Green, Wm. Henry, 243.
Greenville, Tenn., 134.
Grier, J. €., 216.
Gurley Order, The, 209.
Hall, James, 108.

John, 243.
Hamilton College, 166,

300 Index

Hampden-Sidney, i68.

College, 149.
Hampton, 41, 43, 46.
Hanover Academy, 170,

College, 159.

Presbytery of, 87, 107.
Harmony, Presbytery of, 199.
Harrison, Sir Edmund, 44.
Hart, Joseph, 125.
Hartford, Ohio, 157.

Presbytery of, 155,
Havre, 15.

Hempstead, L, I,, 39,
Henry, Patrick, 98.
Her, Nathan, 107, 125.
Heresy, 181, 227, 228, 230, 235, 236.

trials, 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 238.
Professor Briggs, 231-233.
Professor Smith, 233.
Professor Swing, 227.
" Higher Criticism," The, 229.
Higginson, Francis, 23.
Hill, Timothy, 222.
Hobart, Peter, 25.
Hodge, C. W., 243.

Charles, 205.
Hoge, James, 132.

Moses, 149,
Holland, 11, 13, 14, 22, 23, 26, 99.
Holston, 133.

Home Missionary Society, 187, 192, 195.
Hopkins, Samuel, 93, 175, 176,
Houston, Sam'l, 109.
Howard, Colonel Jno. Eager, 98.
Hudson, Ohio, 158.
Hughes, James, 149,
Huguenots, 19, 20, 88, 99, 104.

Services, 22.
Illinois, 159, 169, 194, 198, 222.

Index 30 1

Illinois College, 159.

Indiana, 133, 145, 159, 160, 169, 222.

Synod of, 170, 194.
Indians, 91, 112.

Cayugas, 125.

Cherokee, 133.

Oneidas, 89, 125.

Missions to, 35, 37, 89, 90, ill, 112, 134, 143, 162.
Indian Territory, 222.
Ireland, ii, 15, 17, 27, 40, 45, 46, 50, 52, 60, 61, 84.

Church of, 55-57-

immigration from, 63.
Irish Landlords, 18.

Presbyterians in America, 43, 76, 107.
Institutions, free, 14.
Institutes of religion, 31.
Jamaica, 48, 51, 70,
James River, 88.
Jefferson College, 116, 149, 166.

Thomas, 98.
Johnson, Herrick, 243.
Junkin, George, 182, 185.
Kansas, 222.

«• Kansas Band," The, 222.
Kansas, Synod of, 222.
Kemper, James, 154.
Kendall, Henry, 221.

Kentucky, 135, 137, 138, 142, 143, 190, 191, 193, 200,
203, 210, 211.

Synod of, 134, 138, 191, 210.
King's Mountain, 98, 100.
Knox College, 159.

John, 16, 98, 99.
Knoxville, 143.
Lackawanna, 125.
Laing, Robert, 57.
Lake Forest University, 159.
Lamb, Joseph, 57.
Massachusetts, 46, 58.

302 Index

Lancaster, Presbytery of, 87.

Lane Theological Seminary, 168, 169, 178, 233.

Latta, James, 182.

Lewes, Presbytery of, 75.

Lexington, Presbytery of, 87, 200.

Leyden, 23.

Little, Henry, 222.

Liturgy, Calvinistic, 22.

Livingston, \Vm. 98.

Log College, 56, 68, 71, 75.

London, 41, 42, 44, 46.

Londonderry, 15.

Long Island, 26, 38, 45, 48.

Presbytery of, 49, 51.
Lord, Willis, 215.
Louis XIII, 21.
Louis XIV, 21.
Lovejoy, Elijah P., 198.
Lundy, Benjamin, 191.
Lutheran Doctrines, 31.
Lyon, David C, 223.
McAden, Hugh, 105.
McCook, Henry C, 243,
McCormick Theological Seminary, 243.
McCorkle, Sam'l Eusebius, 108.
McCosh, James, 223, 242.
McGiffert, A. C, 235, 236, 237.
McMillan, John, 114, 149.
McNish, Geo., 43, 46, 48.
McWhorter, Alex., 107.
Makemie, Francis, 40, 42, 43, 46, 48.
Manhattan Island, 38.
Marietta, Ohio, 152.

College, 157.
Martha's Vineyard, 37.

Maryland, 19, 22, 38, 40, 44, 46, 48, 116, 132, 145, 203.
Maryville, Tenn., 168.

College, Theological department, 170.
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 23, 24, 25, 26, ^2> 35-

Index 303

Mather, Cotton, 24, 57.

Matthews, John, 170,

Mayflower, 33.

Mazarin, Cardinal, 21.

Mecklenburg Declaration, 96, 97.

Melville, Andrew, 16,

Memorial Fund, 1 870, 220.

Methodist Missionaries, 145.

Miami University, 149, 158.

Michigan, Synod of, 194.

Middle States, 84.

Middletown, 125.

Miller, Samuel, 148.

Ministry, candidates for, 70, 74, 75, 89, 92, 93, 116, 144,

147, 170, 171, 196, 222, 281.
Minnesota, 223.

Missionaries' commissions, 132-134.
Missionary activity, 88, 89.

contributions to new world, 36, 37, 59, 89.

needs, 129, 147, 156, 161, 166, 196, 220, 221,
269-272,

organization, 90, 91, 124, 125, 126, 130, 131, 134,
143, 145, 162.

societies, 36, 43, 58, 59.
Mississippi, 132, 165.

Presbytery of, 17 1.

River, 153.
Missouri, 165, 193, 203.

Synod of, 210,
Monmouth College, 159.
Montgomery, Robt., 98.
Mount Pleasant, 1 14.
Morgan, Gen'l, 100.
Morristown, 176.
Muskingum, 90, 112, 152.

Nashville College, Theological Department, 171.
Natchez, 132.
Negroes, 94, 208.
Nelson, David, 198.

304

Index

Neshaminy, 56.

Netherlands, 13.

Newark, N. J., 116.

New Castle, Presbytery of, 49-52, 63, 74, 82, 83, 1 14, 1 18.

New Brunswick, N. J., 143.

Presbytery of, 75, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84. .
New England, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 48, 50-

52, 58-60, 64, 76, 83, 84, 97, 98, 143, 154, 160,

169, 171, 176, 178, 179, 183, 192.
New Jersey, 45, 56, 89, 98, 132, 194.

Synod of, 120.
New Light Covenanting Church, 174.
New Orleans, 207.
Newport, R. I., 175,
Newtown, 48, 51.
New York, 22, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 52, 56, 72, 83, 84, 87,

97, 98, 120, 121, 125, 131, 143, 148, 160, 165, 166,

168, 177, 178, 194, 203, 219, 230, 241,
New York Missionary Society, 172.
New York, Presbytery of, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 230,

237-
New York and Philadelphia, Synod of, 102, 107, 141.
New York, Synod of, 85, 120, 179.
Niagara, Presbytery of, 165.
Nixon, Capt. John, 98.
Non-Conformists, 18.
Norfolk, Va., 131.
Norton, A, T., 222,
North Carolina, 88, 97, 106, 109, 190.
Nott, Eliphalet, 148,
Noyes, George C, 228.

James, 25.
Oakland College, 171.
Oberlin University, 158.
Occom, Sam'l, 89.
Octorara, Pa., 72.
Ohio, 90, no, III, 112, 132, 134, 143, 154, 156, 158,

159, 160, 165, 168, 194, 201,
Ohio River, 153.

Index 305

Ohio, Synod of, 142, 155, 234.

Old Northwest, the, 151, 157, 159.

Onondago, 127,

Orange, Presbytery of, 88, 107.

Orme, John, 57.

Orthodoxy, 60, 62, 72.

Oxford, Ohio, 158.

Pacific Ocean, 100, no.

Palmer, Benj. M, 207.

Parker, Thomas, 25.

Parliament, 36.

Adoption of Reformed Confession of Faith, 16.

abolition of Romish worship, 16.
Patton, Francis L,, 228, 243.

Ebenezer, 54, 72, 76, 83.
Pennsylvania, 19, 44, 45, 46, 56, 58, 105, 107, 108, in,
125, 146, 154, 166, 168, 182, 194.

Synod of, 176.
Persecution, 41, 87.

Philadelphia, 42, 70,76, loi, 176, 177, 178, 185,214,
217, 219, 225.

Presbytery of, 46, 49, 54, 61, 75, 87, 187, 240.

Synod of, 76, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, 120, 179, 183.
Pickens, Gen'l, 100.
Pilgrims, 23, 24, 34, 88.

Pioneers, 88, 90, 99, 105, 106, 108, 109, 113, 114, 115,
116, 118, 131, 132, 133, 150, 154, 161.

Salaries of, 146.
Pittsburg, 143, 182, 216, 217.

Presbytery of, 235.

Synod of, 134, 155.
Pittston, 125.

Plan of Union, The, 127, 189, 183, 18$, 187, 188.
Plumer, William S., 185, 186, 187.
Plymouth, 23, 24, 88.

Colony, 33.
Powers, James, 1 14.
Presbyterian Church Constitution, 29.

doctrine, 9, 31, 86.

3o6

Index

Presbyterian Church, English, 37, 240.

Form of Government (compared with national
government), 29.

New School, 192, 193, 194, 196, 200, 213, 214,
216, 217, 219, 245.

Scotch, 240.

South, 200, 206, 208, 210, 211, 212, 225, 226, 266.

South (new school), 208.

Requirement for membership, 32.
Presbyterianism, American personnel, 43, 46.

distinguished from Episcopacy, 29.

distinguished from Independency, 29.

development, 32.

essential principles, 9.

government, 29, 30.

national origins, 46.

persecution, 37, 38.

polity, 25, 28, 32, 86, 102.

in America, 18, 32.

Cosmopolitan character in early period, 43, 51,

55-
English, The, 34.
Evolution from Congregational Antecedents,

^. 51-87.

First General Assembly, 16.

First Presbytery, 18.
First Synod, 51.

growth, 45, 57, 68, 84, 86, 87, 109, 120, 135,
137, 142, 143, 146, 151, 153, 155, 157,
160, 161, 165, 167, 220, 221, 222, 223.

historic lines, 10.

in eighteenth century, 48.
In 1902, 262-290.

Irish, The, 43, 76, 107.

Leaders, 92.

Middle Colonies, 58.

New England, 45.

in America, New York, 53.

organization, 10, 39, 42, 45, 220, 267.

Index 307

Presbyterianism in America, resultant of diverse national
forces, 27.

in England, new creed (1889), 240.

in Ireland, 61, 62, 63.

in Scotland, 16.

** Declaratory Act," 240.
Presbyterian Ministers' Fund, 2S3.

Presbyterians in the Revolution, 94, 95, 97, lOO,
loi, 102, 103, 106, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123,
124.

New York and New Jersey, 26, 37.

mission work, 33.

in Asia, 243.
Presbytery of Abingdon, 87.

of Carlisle, 87.

of Chicago, 228,

of Chillicothe, 201.

of Cumberland, 139.

of New Brunswick, 75, 77, 79, 82, 8$, 84.

of New Castle, 49, 52, 63, 82, 83, 114, 118.

of Donegal, 74.

of Dutchess County, 87.

of Erie, 165.

of Hanover, 87, 107.

of Harmony, 199.

of Hartford, 155.

of Lancaster, 87.

of Lewes, 75.

of Lexington, 87, 200.

of Long Island, 49, 51.

of Mississippi, 171.

of New York, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 230, 237.

of Niagara, 165.

of Orange, 88-107.

of Philadelphia, 46, 49, 54, 61, 75, 87, 187, 240.

of Pittsburg, 235.

of Redstone, 87, 113, 1 14, 149.

of Snow Hill, 49.

of Transylvania. 87.

3o8

Index

Princeton, 56, 83, 91, 94,97. I05» 108, 114, 115, 118,

132, 149, 166, 223, 242, 281.
Princeton Theological Seminary, 147, 148, 243.
Princeton Review, 182, 213.
Protestant Episcopal Church, 233.
Protestantism, growth of, 19.
Psalms, 266.

Rouse's Version, 265.
Puritans, 14, 23, 25, 43, 45, 46, 97, 99.
Quakers, 191.
Quebec, 98.

Redstone, Presbytery of, 87, 113, 114, 149.
Reese, Thos., 108.
Reformation, 10, ii, 12, 19, 21, 27,
Reformed Church, (Covenanter Church), 266.
Reformed Presbyterian, Gen'l Synod, 214.

Synod of, 173, 174.
Reunion, (1758), 81, 84, 85.

(1869), 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 223, 227,
Revivals, 71-76, 81, 82, 86, 135, 136, 137, 139, 159,

164.
Revision, 244, 263.
Revolutionary War, 91, 94, 104, 106.
Rice, John H., 145, 149, 154, 171, 177, 190.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 21.
Richmond, Va., 149.
Riggs, T. J., 169.
Riley, B. G., 222.
Rio Grande, 100, iio.
Ripon College, 159.
Rodgers, John, 120.
Roman Catholicism, 20, 40, 238.
Roman Catholic persecutions, 15.

worship abolished by Parliament, 16.
Roman law, 12.
Romaine, John B., 148.
Roosevelt, Theo., 98, 109, 132, 133.
Rowland, John, 75.
Roxbury, Mass., 35.

Index 309

Sacraments, 31.

San Francisco, 205.

Schaff, Phillip, 243.

Schools, Free, 14.

Scotch Presbyterians in America, 43, 52, 76, 97, 98, 107,

Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in America, 18, 19, 43, 52,

95» 96, 97» 98. 99, 104, 108.
Scotch monarchs, 18.

Reformation, 15.
Scotland, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 27, 35, 45, 46, 50, 52,
53. 55. 83, 84, 89, 91, 94-

church of, 54.

" The First Covenant," 16.
Scott, Abraham, 155.
Secession, 202, 204, 207.
Separatists, 23, 24.
Setauket, L. I., 51.
Sevier, Col., 100.
Sewickley, 114.
Shaw, James B,, 2l6.
Shedd, W. G. T., 243.
Shelby, Col., 100.
Skelton, Samuel, 23.
Slavery, 142, 189, 190, 191, 192, 196, 198, 199, 20O,

201, 202, 203, 205, 207, 208, 209.
Smythe, Thomas, 100.
Smith, Joseph, 117.

Henry, Preserved, 233, 234.

Robert, 115.
Snow Hill, 40, 52.

Presbytery of, 49.
South, The, 104.
South Carolina, 88, 204.

Synod of, 168.
Southampton, England, 15.

L. L,5i.
Southwest, The, 109.
Spain, 14, 20.
Spencer, Herbert, 27.

310 Index

Spring, Gardiner, 148, 176, 203.

Resolutions, 204, 207,
Stamford, Conn., 39,

Standards, 32, 61, 63, 64, 65-67, 72, 85, 86, 93, 216,
227, 230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 238, 240, 244,
251-261, 262, 264, 265. 266.

Brief Statement, (17 14), 61.
(1902), 251-261.

discussions, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181.

revision, 241, 242, 245-251, 262.

General Assembly vote, 243.
Stark, Col., 98.
St. Bartholomew, 20.
Stearns, Jonathan F., 216.
Steubenville, Ohio, 157.
Stiles, Ezra, 93.
Stony Point, 98.
Stowe, Calvin E., 169.
Strong, William, 216.
Stuart, George H., 214, 218.
Sullivan, Col., 98.
Swing, David, 227, 228.

Systematic Beneficence, Assembly's Committee, 285.
Synod of the Carolinas, 120, 134.

of Genesee, 187.

of Geneva, 167, 187.

of Indiana, 170, 194.

of Kansas, 222.

of Kentucky, 134, 138, 191, 2IO.

of Michigan, 194.

of Missouri, 210.

of New Jersey, 120.

of New York, 85, 120, 179.

of New York and Philadelphia, I02, 107, 141.

of Ohio, 142, 155, 234.

of Pennsylvania, 176.

of Philadelphia, 76, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, 120, 179,
183.

of Pittsburg, 134, 155.

Index 311

Synod of Reformed Presbyterians, 173, 174,

of South Carolina, 168.

of Tennessee, 194.

of Virginia, 120, 168, 199.

of Western Reserve, 187.
Taunton, Mass., 38.
Taylor, Nathaniel, 43, 46, 176.
Temperance Assembly's Committee, 285.
Tennents, The, 55, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77, 83,

107.
Tennessee, 109, 132, 133, 134, 143, 160, 165, 170, 171-
190, 203.

Synod of, 194.
Texas, 222.

Theological seminaries, 56, 68, 91.
Theological Seminary, Columbia, 168.

of the Northwest, 170, 228.
Theology, Calvinistic, 33.

discussions, 60.
Thomson, Chas., 98.

John, 72.
Transylvania, Presbytery of, 87.
Treat, Robert, 83.
Ulster, 18, 57.
Unitarianism, 62, 178.
United Foreign Missionary Society, 163.
United Presbyterian Church, 265.
Union College, 148, 166.
Union Theological Seminary, (N. Y.), 230, 233, 235,

243.

(Va.), 168, 171, 177.
Van Dyke, Henry J., 243.

Virginia, 19, 22, 23, 44, 46, 56, 58, 82, 87, 88, 95, 97,
98, 105, 107, 114, 116. 132, 143, 145, 191.

Synod of, 120, 168, 199.
Wabash College, 159.
Wales, 37, 50, 52, 57.
Waldensians, 10.
Warfield, Benjamin B., 243.

312 Index

Washington College, ii6, 132, 149, 166.
Washington, D. C, 98, 131.
George, 97, I2i, 152.

Watts, Isaac, 93.

Wayne, Gen'l Anthony, 98.

Webster, Daniel, 98.

Western Memorial, The, 180.

Western Missionary Society, The, 134, 143.

Western Reserve, The, 154, 155, 156.

College, 158.

Synod of, 187.
Western Theological Seminary, 168.
Westminster Confession of Faith, 32.
Whelpley, Sam'l, 176.

Whitefield, George, 56, 68, 71, 76, 77, 104.
Wilkesbarre, Pa., 125.
Williams, Col, James, 100.
Wilson, John, 43, 46.

Joshua L., 154, 178, 182.

Samuel R., 209.
Wisconsin, 159, 222.

Witherspoon, John, 46, 91, loi, 108, 185.
Woman's Missionary organizations, Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church, 286.

Presbyterian Church, (South), 285,

Presbyterian Home Missions, 271, 272.

Presbyterian Foreign Missions, 275.

Reformed Church in America, 286.

Reformed Church in United States, 286.
Winthrop, Gov., 24.
Yale College, 54, 57, 176.
Youghiogheny River, The, 1 14, 152.
Young, John, 25.

Young Men's Christian Association, 286.
Young Women's Christian Association, 286.

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