Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism in history: address at the centennial synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Winnsboro, S. C., Saturday, Nov. 7, 1903

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Mr Moderator, Ladies and Gentlemen: Scotch-Irish Presbyte.rianism in History is,
Indeed, a very large pai-t of history, and particularly of the history of English-speaking
people for more than three hundred years. There has not been a great achievement
in arms, literature, science, government or legislation with which is has not been
associated in some influential degree. The uncompromising enemy of superstition and
priestcraft, the patron of letters, the teacher of a saving faith in the eternal verities,
the very sanctuary of Truth, it has been a dominating force in the elevation of the
world of thougiht and impulse and feeling above the miasma of ecclesiastical ignor-
ance into the perfect light of intellectual freedom. Call the roll of the most illus-
trious martyrs for conscience-sake and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians will answer. The
faces of the dead on every battlefield of three centuries, where the co^ntest was waged
between Right and Wrong, Truth and Falsohoiod, Freedom and Oppression, testify the
devotion of these people to their faith and duty. In the cold of winter, the heat of sum-
mer, hiding in caves and dens of earth, starving in the wilderness, languishing in
prison, burning at the stake, it must have been such as they that St John saw in his
Apocalyptic vision coming up out of great tribulation into the inheritance of the saints
in light.

Presbyterianism is a system of pure representative government, says the
Rev Dr Breed in his work on "Presbyterianism and the Revolution:" has always
been particularly odious to tyrants, was the first to raise its voice in fnvor of breaking
away from British control, and was largely instrumental in influencing the Ameri-
can colonies to form the Confederation of Stntes and then the American Union. It is
not true that the Federal Constitution was fashioned after the Presbyterian form of
Church government— it is true, however, that while strong, earnest and courageous
men of other communions aided in the work of forming the Union and contributed
each in some degree to the most perfect system of human government that was ever
devised, the makers of the Declaration and the Constitutiort were nffected deeply in
their deliberations and conclusions by the Presbyterian snirit. then as now exercising a
powerful influence Tipon the leaders of public sentiment In this land.

"The American form of civil government." savs Dr Briggs. "was a happv combina-
tion of some of the best features presented in Presbvterianism and in Congress tioml-
i.sm. There is no reason to doubt." Dr Briggs continues, "that Pre.sbyterianism influ-
enced the framers of the Constitution in their efforts to erect a national oreaniz.ntion—
a constitutional republic:" but it was not the only factor in the making of the Repub-
lic. It vaunted not itself upon its achievements, it was not puffed up: but it was one
of the chief factors in planning the deliverance of the colonies from the oppression of
absentee landlordism and foreign domination, and in finally winning victory. The
bands that cleared the wilderness and sublued the savage were strong enough to
build out of varied mnsses of differinar peonies a government th.nt. in spite of Its many
disappointments ' and failures, is still the wonder of the world.

It was the Presbyterians of Mecklenburg and Westmoreland who sounded
t-he notes of defiance to King George and his counsellors. As the Rev
Dr Quigg said in a notable addre.«s at the dedication of a Presbvterian
church in Lexington, Georgia, "Presbyterlnnism stands for a free church politv. sim-
ple worship, snlritual life, intellectual vigor, the nursf^ry of schools and fountain of civil
and religious liberty." The first contest for liberty of speech and freedom of conscience
was made In this country by the Scottish Attornev Genernl of Pennsvlvnnia. Andrew
TTnmilton. .nidcd by two Presbyterian lawyers of New York. .Tames Alexander and
William Smith. The casus belli was John Peter Zenger. the publisher of the New York
Journal, in Which were printed some criticisms of William Cosby, the Royal Governor
of the Province. His defence 'was imdertaken by the Presbyterian Junta of New
York, and in spite of the adverse rulings of the Court and its determination to convict.
SO powerful was the presentation of the case th.'it Zenker wag acquitted by the jury.

without division or hesitation. So great was this Presbyterian triumph that Gouver-
neur Morris declared that "the trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American
freedom— the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America.

There can be no question that liberty of conscience and freedom of speech were es-
tablished in the New World by men of Scottish blood. In 1754 the formal protest against
taxtion without representation was made by Benjamin Franklin, a Presbyterian, who
attended the ministry of Samuel Hemphill in Philadelphia and su.stained him when
he was charged with plagiarizing his sermons, on the ground that he would rather sit
under the preaching of a minister who could steal a good sermon than under the
preaching of one who could not write a good sermon. In 1760, more. than ten years be-
fore the battle of Lexington, the Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania rose up in arms against
the principle of taxation without representation or protection. No provision was made
by the Government to guard the settlements in Western Pennsylvania, Maryland
and Virginia against the atrocities of savage warfare, and the Scotch -Irish in Lancas-
ter and Cumberland counties, Pennsylvania, provided for their own defence by the
organization of several companies of Rangers, which inflicted terrible punishment upon
the savage foe and restored Deace to a desolated region. It is noted by Hanna that
probably the first instance of the operation of lynch law in America occurred when
the Paxtang Rangers forced the Jail at I^ancaster and massacred every Indian con-
fined there, fourteen in number. Twenty years later the Scotch-Irish of Washington
County, Pennsylvania, murdered In cold blood ninety men, women and children of
the Moravian Indians. These bloody reprisals were defended on the ground that the
law was not stro^ng enough for the protection of the people. The Captain of the Pax-
tang Rangers was the Rev John Elder, minister of Paxtang and Derry congregations,
who tried to restrain the bloodthirstiness of his people without avnil. and who after-
wards defended their course as "one of those youthful ebullitions of wrath
caused by momentary excitement, to which human Infirmity is subjected." It Is of
persojnal Interest to me that the Rev John Elder was succeeded in the pastorate of
the Paxtang congregation by the Rev Matthew Lind, my great-grandfather.

The spirit of resistance to foreign oppression, which was first manifested by
the Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania and New York, was the spirit which animated
these liberty-loving people in the Carollnas and in the colonies, wherever
they had established communities. They acknowledged final allegiance only to the
King of Kings; and remembering their own deliverance from bondage and desiring
that the freedom which they possessed should be extended in larger measure to
their posterity, and preserved forever, the were the first to declare themselves free
from British dominion, pledging to the maintenance of this solemn covenant their lives,
their fortunes and their sacred honor. This declaration was made at Charlotte,
North Caiolina, in May, 1775, more than a year before the Declaration at Philadel-
phia. It was drafted by Ephralm Brevard, a ruling elder in the Presbyterian
Church, and of the convention which adopted the Declaration one-third of the mem-
bers were ruling elders. In the seven years war which followed, the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians were faithful unto death and in every battle of the Revolution fought
with unsurpassed devotion for the freedom of the Colonies.

"Driven from their adopted home in the North of Ireland by Englsh persecution,"
says Douglas Campbell in "The Puritan In Holland, England and America." "there
was burned into their very souls the bitter recollection of English ingratitude and
English broken faith. They were im-Engllsh in their origin, and they came to Amer-
ica, whlcli they have always looked upon as their own country— hating England, her
Church, and her form of government with the Intensest hatred." "They were fitted
to be Americans from the very start," says Theodore Roosevelt in "The Winning of
the West, "they were kinsfolk of the Covenanters; they deemed it a religious duty
to Interpret their own Bible and held for a divine right the election of their own
clergy. For generations their whole ecclesiastic and scholastic system had
been fundamentally democratic." "Kinsfolk of the Covenanters?" They were
the Covenanters themselves, many of them at least, all of them, in fact.
In spirit. If not In name, were of that uncompromising stock who "drew
the blood from their arms to furnish ink for their pens to sign the
solemn league and covenant." In his history of Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyteri-

an Church, the Rev Dr Lathan says: "John Hemphill, the father of the second pastor
of Hopewell, was a Covenanter, and in the Covenanter faith and practices he edu-
cated his children. . . . John Hemphill in common with tiie Cuvunanters, regarded
the crown of England as stained with the blood of the "Reforming Fathers." When
John Hemphill, (the second pastor of Hopewell,) left Ireland he was a member of
the Covenanter Church, but on coming tu America he connected himself with the
Associate Reformed Synod. He modelled his sermons in accordance with the sys-
tem of sei-monizing common with the old Covenanter preachers and Secession
fathers.

The people in that day were not raised on chalk water and skim milk, the revival
machinery of modern up-to-date religion, the hand primary, so to speak, the "Re-
storation Host" had not been invented then. The people were not Hooded with the
cheap literature of the present time. Says Dr Lathan: "They had treatises on Justi-
fication, on Adoption, on Sanctiflcation, on Original Sin, on the Attributes of God, on
Pi-edestination, in a word, on all the cardinal doctrines of the Chrisitian religion.
They were read and reread in the societies. When one individual became tired read-
ing, another took his place. Not unfrequently some old man would stop reading by
asKing a question, to which some other old man would give an answer. This often
gave rise to the most profound discussion of some important tJible doctrine." Old
folks and young were grounded in the Scriptures and in the Catechisms of the
Church, which contain its testimony to the truths, the understanding of which is es-
sential to salvation.

In his book on "Presbyterianism, the Revolution, the Declaration and the Constitu-
tion," the Rev Dr Smyth reviews the active part taken by l-'resbyterian elders in
the Province of South Carolina. The battles of the Cowpens, Kings Mountain and
Huck's defeat turned the tide of victory to the Patriot arms. Gen Morgan, who com-
manded at Cowpens, was a Presbytei-ian elder, and nearly all the men under his com-
mand were Presbyterians. "In the battle of Kings Mountain, Col Campbell, Col
James Williams, Col Cieaveland, Col Shelby and Col Sevier were all Presbyterian
eiders, and the body of their ti-oops were gathered from Presbyterian settlements. At
Huck's defeat in York Col Bratton and Major Dickson were both elders in the Pres-
byterian Church." Major Samuel Morrow, who served under Sumter, was a ruling-
elder in the Presbyterian Church for fifty yeai'S.

"Concerning the patriotism of the Scotch-Irish," says Hanna, "the general testi-
mony of contemporary and later writers is to the effect that there were no Tories
among them, and that they were uniformly arrayed against the British." The
exceptions only proved the rule that these people were faithful in their allegiance to
the cause of civil and religious freedom which they espoused and for which they
were ready to die. It was the Presbyterian elders who fought the decisive battles
of the War for Independence; and to the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians this country and
the world are indebted for the gi'eat leaders in American politics who laid the foun-
dations of our institutions so firmly and have ever contended valiantly for the faith
of their fathers. What a galaxy is form American history. Hanna, to whom I am
indebted for so much information upon the subject under consideration, says: "Of the
State Governors from ITSy to 1885 the Scotch furnish to Pennsylvania nearly one-half
her Chief Executives; to Virginia nearly one-third; to North Carolina, more than
one-fourth; to South Carolina, nearly one-third; to Georgia, more than one-half; to
Alabama, more than .one-fifth; to Mississippi, about one-fifth; to Louisiana, more
than one-fifth; to Texas, about one-third; to Tennessee, nearly one-half; to Kentucky,
about one-third; to Ohio, one-half; to Indiana, more than one-third; to Illinois,
nearly one-third; to Missouri, nearly one-half." In statesmanship, in war and litera-
ture and business, the Scotch and Scotch-Irish have held first place in American
achievement. In politics and statesmanship, there are John C. Calhoun, Alexander
H. Stephens, James Buchanan, Alexander Hamilton, Jeremiah S. Black. Howell Cobb,
James K. Polk, Stephen A. Douglas, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Mar-
cus A. Hanna, Arthur P. Gorman, and a host of others whose names are written im-
perishably In the records of the country. Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott, Zachary
Taylor. Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, James Longstreet, Nathan B. Forrest.
John Paul Jones, Oliver Hazard Perry, Franklin Buchanan and a glorious company

of other great fighters and strategists have added lustre to the military prowess
of this country on land and sea. Washington Irving, .Edgar Allan Poe, Gilbert
Stuart, J. Q. A. Ward, Joseph Henry, Thomas A. Edison, John Ericson, Robert
Fulton, Alexander Graham Bell, Asa Gray, A. T. Stewart, Peter Cooper, Andrew Car-
negie and John D. Rocliefeller, all of Scotch birth or Scotch ancestry, have illustrat-
ed in their achievements in business and literature and art and science and invention
and in works of benevolence the strength of their stock and the mastery which has
come to this masterful race because of the simplicity of its faith and its abiding trust
in God. It will not be claimed for a moment that all Scotchmen and Scotch-Irish-
men—and they are just the same with the slightest advantage possibly with the
Scotch-Irish blend— are Presbyterians; but all of tho.se named were either brought up
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord according to Presbyterian standards or
gained something of moral and spiritual sti'ength from association with those who
had been so fortunate.

It is worth noting here, probably, that the Scotch-Irish are really Scotch. "The
Scotch-Irish are the people who came through Ireland to America," Dr Quigg has
explained. "The phrase 'Scotch-Irish' is unknown in Ireland, Canada or Australia
and is peculiar to the United States." The Rev Dr Hall, of New York, bore this testi-
mony upon the question of the identity of these people: "I have sometimes noticed
a little confusion in relation to the phrase •Scotch-irish," as if it meant tliat Scotch
people had come over ajid intermai-ried witli the native Irish and that a combination
of two races, two places, two nationalities iiau caiien place. That is by no means
the state of the case. On the contrary, with kindly good feeling in various directions
the Scotch people kept to the Scotch people, and they are called Scotch-Irish from
purely local, or geographical reasons, and not froni any union of the kind I have al-
luded to. I haven't the least doubt that their being in Ireland, and in close contact
with the native people of that land, and their circumstances there, had some influence
in the developing of the cliaracter, in the broadening of the sympatheis, in the ex-
tending of the range of thought and action of the Scotch-irish people; but they
are Scotch through and through, they are Scottish out and out, and they are Irish be-
cause in the providence of God they were sent for some generations to the land that
I am permitted to speak of as the land of my birth."

"In the country districts," (,oi Ulster,) says Hanna, "the peasant still retains the
Scotch 'bur' in his speech; devoutly believes in the doctrines of John Calvin and
John Knox; is firmly committed against everything allied with Popery or Prelacy,
and usually emphatic in his claims to a Scottish and his disavowal of an Irish de-
scent."

There can be no question of what the Scotch-Irish achieved in the struggle for
American -..dependence. Seven of the first Governors of the thirteen colonies were of
Scotch-Irisli blood. Eight of tlie most conspicuous generals in the army of freedom
were Scotch-Irish. The Royal Government in London was informed by the Royal
Governors in America that "the Presbyterian clergy were to blame for bringing
about the Revolution. Patrick Henry in Virginia; David Caldwell, Ephraim Brevaj-d,
Alexander Craighead ajid others in North Carolina; the Rutledges and Tennant in
South Carolina; Duffield, Wilson, Thomas Craighead in Pennsylvania; Smith, Rodgers
and Livingston, in New York; the Rev Dr Witherspoon, in New Jersey, who chal-
lenged the Continental Congress to do its duty by his declaration that he would infi-
nitely rather that his grey hairs should descend to the sepulchre "by the hand of the
executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country;" all these il-
lustrious men and many other of the same blood and faith arrayed themselves on
the side of freedom. "At that period," says the Rev Dr Bryson," no single agency in
the country had such tremendous power as the pulpit. The ministry were universal-
ly a highly educated class. They were Calvinists in their creed, and they had learned
their principles of liberty from the Word of God." "He that will not honor the
memory and respect the influence of Calvin," says Bancroft," knows but little of
the origin of American independence." "Calvin was the founder of the greatest of re-
publics," says Daubigne. At the time of the American Revolution the Scotch-Irish
people m.ust have formed near one-third of the entire population of the colonies;"
and to the end of the s*-xuggle they fought on the side of freedom, sustained by

unfaltering trust in God and cheered on to ever greater sacrifices by brave-hearted
women wiio had brought with them to this country the recollection of terrible
tragedies through wliich they had passed. To these quiet, patient, sublime sufferers,
Dr Bryson pays this eloquent tribute:

"What shall be said of the women of the Scotch-Irish blood? Glorious women
are they, rney ' surtered; -they endured they toiled; tney struggled; they en-
couraged; tliey prayer; they coraforted; they were wounded; they were sa-
bered; tucy were murdered; tUey died liRe heroes; they were faithful to their
sires, their husbands and their sons. Tliey liavo made Scotch-irishmen the best blood
in the world."

It was the custom among the old-time folk to attend church for an intellectual, as
well as a religious purpose, and it was expected that the attentive hearer would be
able to give some account of the sermon, fan Maclaren tells about a very good woman
in the Church at Drumtochty.

"It was the birthright of every native of the parish to be a critic and
certain ones were allowed to be experts in special departments— Liacn-
lan Campbell in doctrine and Jamie Soutar m logic— but as an auld round practitioner
Mrs Macfadyen had a solitary reputation, it rested on a long series of unreversed
judgments, with teiicitous strokes of description that passed into the literary capital
of the Glen. One felt it was genius, and couid only note contributing cii-cumstances
-;-an eye tbat took in the preacuer, from the crown of his head to the sole of his
loot; an almost uncanny insight in,io character; the instinct to seize on every scrap
of evidence; a memory that was simply an automatic register; an unfailing sense of
i:aaa A4![t!i4audui! a;u[os(-iL.- uu puu :ssc)U)yrdiiig subject.

It goes without saying that Mrs Macfadyu did not taJie nervous little notes dur-
ing toe sermon — all writing on Sabbatn, in Kirk or outside, was strictly forbidden in
Drumtochty— or mark her Bible, or practice any otlier profane device of feeble-
Blinded liearers. It did not matter how elaborate or how incolierent a sermon might
be, it could not confuse our critic.

When John Peddle, of Muirtown, who always approached two hours, and usually
had to leave out the last head, took time at Urumtocnty Fast, and gave it fu'i
length, his famous discourse on the total depravity of the human race, trom the text:
"Arise, shine, for thy light is come," it may be admitted that the Glen wavered in
its confidence. Human nature has limitations, and failure would have been no
discredit to Klspeth.

" -They were saying at the Presbytery,' Burnbrae reported, 'that it hes mair than
seeventy heads, coontin' pints, of coorse, and a' can weel believe it. Na, na, it's no
tae be expeck it that Elspetli cud gie them a' aifter ae hearin'.'

Jamie Soutar looked in to set his mind at rest, and Jillspeth went at once to work.

" 'Sit doon, Jamiei for it canna be dune in a meenut.'

It took twenty-three minutes exactly, for Jamie watched the clock.

" 'That's the laist, makin' seeventy-four, and ye may depend on every ane but that
fourth pint under the sixth head. Whether it was the "beginnin" o' fiath' or "the
origin,' a' canna be sure, for he cleared his throat at the time.' "

Peter Bruce stood helplessly at the Junction next Friday— Drumtochty was cele-
brating Flspetn— and the achievement established her for life. Probationers, who
preached in the vacancy had heard rumors, and tried to identify their judge, with
the disconcerting result that they addressed their floweriest passages to Mistress
Stirton, who was the stupidest woman in the Free Kirk, and had once stuck in the
"chief end of man." They never suspected the sonsy, motherly woman, two pews
behind Donald Menzies, with her face of demure interest and general air of country
simplicity. It was as well for the Probationers that they had not caught the glint
of those black, beady eyes."

Elspeth Macfadyen was a type of the women of the Associate Reformed Presbyte-
rian Church. Some of us have known them, and how much this Church is indebted
to them for all its glorious history.

It is difficult to speak of the Scotch-Irish and their achievements in terms of mod-
eration; and it would be vain to attempt on suc'h an occasion as this anything more
than the briefest and most unsatisfactory mention of what they have done for the
benefit of humanity and to the glory of God. They were strong and undismayed and
unconquerable here because, here as there, they believed that resistance to tyrants
was obedience to God. They triumphed in America because they had suffered in
Scotland and Ireland, suffered as few other people 'had ever suffered for Christ's
sake, not from savage tribes, as they suffered in this country, but from two
of the holy and Apostolic Churches which sought to make converts to
Christianity by wheel and faggot and bloodshed and confiscation and
outrage, rather than by the ministry of peace. We do not value the blessings we

8

enjoy because they have come to us without privation or discomfort or struggle. We
do not remember the martyrs, we forget that —

"There blows no rose so red,

As where some buried Caesar bled,"

and lest we should shock the susceptibilites of the moral invertebrates of this age,
we pack away the old pictures in the attic and forget the testimony of the fathers. It
is well that we should remember the way we have come into our present beatitude of
sweetness and lig'ht; through what dark caverns the road hither hath run, across
what raging torrents, around what bloody angles, through what fierce flames, un-
der the shadow of how many crosses and over tlie graves of how many of the slain
for God's sake!

To no one of these countries— Holland, France, England, Scotland and Ireland— was
the Presbytei-ian Church in America so largely indebted as to the North of Ireland,
says Craighead, and it was here that under lienry Ylli, and Edward VI, and Mary,
and Charles I, these devoted people were subjected to persecutions at the hands of
the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, which chill the blood with horror even after
the lapse of nearly three hundred years. The Presbyterians would not conform to
Jr-ieiacy or confess to Rome, and they were pursued with a fiendishness of cruelty of
which we cannot now conceive. In the days of the Ii-ish Rebellion and up to the
death of Chaj-les I, the Presbyterians passed through the vei-y fires of hell. The prin-
ciple object of this Rebellion, which was planned and encouraged by authority was
the destruction of Protestantism. Orders were given to "spare neither man, woman
nor child." An universal massacre followed. The murdered victims were not buried
in many places and pestilence attended murder, in four months 6,000 died in Cole-
raine; in Carrickfergus, 2,500; in Belfast and Malone and Antrim about 6,000. The car-
nage rivalled that of St Bartholomew. In a small part of Ulster thirty Protestant min-
isters were murdered and a large number died in wretchedness and poverty." In this
war of extermination the Episcopalians suffered more severely than the Presbyteri-
ans, and after this persecution as over the Presbyterians who survived united with the
returning refugees from Scotland in re-establishing the Presbyterian Church in Ire-
land. , . . —

The two great enemies of the Church were Popery and Prelacy, and the persecu-
tions by the Catholics were only equalled in atrocity by the persecutions by the
Episcopalians—

But yet at length out of them all
The Lord did set them free.

It was because of their terrible experiences under ecclesiastical domination that
the Scotch-Irish settlers resisted every attempt at religious establishments in this
country and maintained that the mental and moral freedom of its people depended
upon the complete separation of Church and State. "From their entrance into this
country," says Dr Craighead, "as may be seen by their conduct in Virginia and New
York, they opposed everything that looked like a union of Church and State, or
any dependence of the Church on the arm of civil power. ... In the long contest be-
tween these monarchical governments and their subjects, the natural and constant al-
lies of despotism were the Romish and Episcopal hierarchies. These were ever the
most dangerous, as well as the most inveterate, enemies of the Non-Conformists
when they were resisting tyrants. Presbyterians, at least, had most to dread from
Episcopal Prelates and from them they suffered most. The Episcopal Church was
more frequently in the ascendant and had much the greater influence with civil rul-
ers. This influence it almost invariably used to oppress all outside of its com-
munion."

In South Carolina, as in Ireland and Scotland, the Established Church sought to
dominate not only the political conduct of the settlers in the back districts, but to
exact tithes from them for the support of the Establishment. "The parish was the
.basis of the civil as well as the religious organization of the Government," under
which the Scotch-Irish settlers in the up-country were, expected to live. The litier-
ty, which was permitted them, served only to emphasize their real subjection to the
Church; a condition which, it might have been expected, they would endure only so

long as resistance was impossible. To whait extent the proscription of these people
would have gone is somewhat a matter of opinion and conjecture, but the first steps
that were taken in this colony to unite the civil and the ecclesiastical power were not
reassuring- to those who had sought freedom of worship in this New World. The
spirit whieli controlled the Church people in the old country manifested itself here
in a numlier of ways and in none more clearly than in the law declaring that all
marriages performed by other ministers than those of the Established Church were
null and void, and that the children born of such marriages were illegitimate. It Is
true that this manifestation of religious prejudice was speedily overcome, and that the
obnoxious Act was repealed, but its passage stiowed to what extent the spirit of
persecution existed in this colony in the beginning.

In the "Ravenel Records,' by Henry Edmund Ravenel of the Spartanburg Bar. it
is said that within the space of ten years preceding December 31, 177.5. something over
£104,000 were advanced from the public treasury for the support of the Church In
this colony. "The e.sitate of the Episcopal Church, drawn more or less from all de-
nominations by law. was computed in 1777 to amount to £330,000; and the sum paid by
Dissenters to this Church in the ten years previous to 1775 was stated to be more
than £S2,013 10 shillings. The whole number of the Established Churches in 1777 was
twenty, while those of the Dissenters were seventy-nine in number, and in general
were much larger than the others."

The Huguenots, we are told by Edward ATcCrndy in his History of South Carolina
Under the Royal Government, hnd no disposition to quarrel with the administration
.of the Government, nor had the German settlers on the Edisto, or the Sw'ss on the
Savannah. "But tbe case was very different with the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian
who was now coming into the Province. The Church hnd he'd out no kindly hand to
him. On the contrary, it had rewarded his zeal and heroism in the Protestant cause
with oppression and wrong. It had not sheltered 'him as a refugee as it bad the Hu-
guenot in the crypt of Canterbury and in St MarW nh->,^f.i -' a^ T5.,t>-ini<'s Cathedral.
Dublin. On the contrary, it hnd driven him from his home. The Huguenot did not ob-
ject to a liturgy: he was accustomed to use one. But this the Scotch-Irish Presbvteri-
an could not endure, for that had been one of the points upon which Knox hnd dif-
fered with the English Reformers. He had left Ireland becausehe would not use it; was
he to do so now in the wild woods of Carolina? Then the system of government was
based here, as it had been in the old country which he had left, upon the Church of
England. He could only he represented in the /ssembly by having the lands which
he and his people had tqken up made into a township and then Into a parish. All
this was the more distasteful to him because his own social and civil system was
itself bas<^d noon an ecclesiastical idea— a church polity of it^ own. If the old St
Philip's Church was a part of the Constitution of South CTirolina as T^'f^stminster
Abbey was of the British Constitution, so around the 'old AVaxhaw Church' in Lan-
caster—the first church above Orangeburg— was formed the settlement which gave
tone and thought to the whole upper country of the State."

Conditions have changed, and. thanks to the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and their
religious congeners, it is hardly possible that the world will again be cursed with
Popery and Prelacy as it was in the days of the martyrs. To the Presbyterians, as
we believe, have been committed the oracles of God: the Church which has come
down in unbroken lines from Moses to Christ, and from the Apostles to this day.
Said Bishop T.ightfoot. of Durham, "the most learned of all the Bi.shops of the Church
of En.gland." in his essay on the Epistle to the Philinpians that, "the early consti-
tution of the Apostlic Churches of the first century was not that of a single Bishop,
but of a body of pastors indifferently styled Bishops or Presbyters, and that it was not
until the very end of the Apostolic age that the office which we now call Episcopacy
gradually and slowly made its way into Asia Minor; that Presbytery was not a later
growth out of Episcopacy, but that Episcopacy was a later growth out of Presby-
tery. . . . These were, from the commencement of the Middle Ages down to the Re-
formation, large exceptions from the principle of Epi.scopal government, which can
be called by no other name than Presbyterian."

In essentials the great Presbyterian family are of one mind. There are differences
among them on some minor points of doctrine or practice, perhaps— on the question
of Psalmody and as to the use of instrumental music in the service of the Church,

10

etc; but on the fundamentals of their faith, though many as the billows they are
one as the sea. Under the Presbyterian system the Church is regarded as a spiritual
commonwealth, not as a political power. Its theology is Augustinian, as elaborated
by John Calvin. All the Reformed Churches, as Dr Quigg has explained, were Cal-
vinistic in creed. "Each movement of the Reformation, though self-originated, was
thoroughly Calvinistic, simply as the result of Bible study. The Reformed Church
was Presbyterian. The French Church as much as the Kirk of Scotland. In 25
years after Calvin began his work there were 2,000 places of worship with nearly
half a million of worshippers in France alone." Ambrose Willie preached to a con-
gregation of 20,000 people in France in 1556. In the same year Peter Gabriel spoke
to tens of thousands. "In less than half a century this system had gained nearly
one-half of France, embracing every great mind in the land." Whitefield "was
called the Calvinistic establisher of Methodism." "Calvinism and Methodism were,
for a time, synonymous terms, and the Methodist was called another sect of Pres-
byterians." The theology of the Episcopalians is Calvinistic in some measure, and
before his recent death Pope Leo XIII declared that the events of Providence were
ordered and what had been ordained would come to pass.

"John Calvin's emphasis upon God's holiness," says the Rev Dr McGiffert. "made
his followers scrupulously, even censoriously pure: his emphasis upon God's will
made them stern and unyielding in the perform.ance of what they believed to be their
duty; his emphasis upon God's majesty, paradioxioal though it may seen at first sisrht,
promoted in no small degree the growth of civil and religious liberty, for it dwarfed
all mere human authority and made men bold to withstand the unlawful encroach-
ments of thf^ir fellows. Thus Calvin became a mighty force in the world."

Last month the two hundredth anniversary of Jonathan Edwards's birth was cele-
brated at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, w^ith imposing services and in many churches
throughout the country the most eloquent eulogies were paid to the memory and
achievements of this great man. "He borrowed the essential features O'f his the-
ology from Calvin, as Calvin had borrowed them from Augustine and Augustine had
borrowed them from the Roman law. But to their, interpretation and defence.' says
Dr Lyman Abbott, "he brought a mind of singular acuteness, a philoso'phical scholar-
ship extraordinary for his time if not for any time, an intellectual courage rarely
equalled and never surpassed by any religious teacher in the history of the
Church," In the opinion of one of his commentators' he that would understand the
significance of later New England thought must make Edwards the first object of
his study." There have been many and wide departures in New England from the
stern and unyielding faith taught by Jonathan Edwards, Universalism. Unitarianism,
Mormonism, Mary Baker G. Eddyism are possibly the protests of wicked and fro-
ward generations against the system of religion repre.sented by this uncompromising
interpreter of the justice and majesty of the Almighty,

The meat was too strong for the so-called "Reformers" who had neither the un-
derstanding ear nor the applying conscience. It is claimed that the Edwards'
system of theology "has now only an historical existence;" that "no minister
preaches it; no Church believes it; no theological seminary teaches it, except with
modifications which Edwards would have rejected with indignant disdain." How-
ever that may be. diligent search would fail to discover any improvement in the the-
ology of morals of present-day believers. If the preachers of this "outworn creed,' as
it is called by the ungodly, would shock society and the clubs of our day and time by
declaring the penalties of the law for its violation, nevertheless their preaching exer-
cised a powerful influence in moulding the civilization of our country.

The Calvinistic system was made for men of sound understanding, not for the
mentally infirm. The mastery of the textbooksof theChurch— the Catechims, Con-
fession and the Scriptures — required a particularly alert intelligence. There is no
modern method of mnemonics that compares with the system in which Presbyte-
rians of earlier generations were trained. "The first book of discipline drawn up by
John Knox provided that a school be erected in every parish for the instruction of
youth in religion, grammar and the Latin tongue, and also that a college in every
notable town should be established." In these schools and colleges the mental and

iriortU faculties were thoroughly educated, and this instniotinn was supplemented by
the sdhool of tlie family and the school of the Church.

•'God did from all eternity of His sovereign pleasure, and by the most wise and
holy counwol of Tlis own will. unchang:i'al>ly ordain all things that comi; to pass
God's decree fixes the eternal destiny of angfls and men, but on principles strictly
just and benevolent. Good angels are predestinated to life, evil angels to destruction.
A part of oui- apostate race are, of the riches of God's grace, predestinated to obtain
life eiternal through the mediation of Christ; while the rest are, for their sin. pre-
destinated most justl>-. as all might have been, to everlasting death."

That is the faith of the Associate Reform PresbyterianChurch.lt is the faith in which
the prophets and preachers and evangelists and martyrs believi^l. tht- faith which lias
sustained this venerable body since its organization one hundred years ago, through
all the mutations of time and against all the enemies who have sought to sap its
foundations and impeach its testimony. It is a glorious faith. What has it not ac-
compJished for the elevation of the human race, for the inspiration of the living,
for the comfort of the dying, for the consolation of the bereaved! Surely this Synod
is compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses. Who are they that join in the sing-
ing of the Psalm, "Lift up >'x>ur Heads, O, ye Gates, that the King of Glory may
come in?" Who are they, indeed, but the holy men of Goti, by whose labors have we
been brought into this goodly place? What a grand company it is! TTie Boyces and
Griers and Presslys and Hempliills and Youngs and Plennikens and Brices and
Sloans and Bonners and Alillers and Galloways and Hunters and McDonalds, and a
host of those to whom they ministered faithfully here, now numbered together among
the saints in glory everlasting. What an inheritance we have who live after them!
What an inspiration we should find in this holy place and in such spiritual company
for loftier conceptions of duty, for deeper consecration to highi-r living!