Presbyterian Churches
Presbyterian Churches The different bodies into which the Presbyterians are divided will here be treated as nearly in the historical relation which they sustain towards each other as it is possible to place them. We begin with the Presbyterians of Scotland, because they are, among all English-speaking nations, the only ones directly allied with the state by establishment, and because it is from Scotland that English and American Presbyterianism has obtained nourishment and succor, rather than from the Continent, however true it be that Presbyterianism had there its origin. SEE PRESBYTERIANISM; SEE PRESBYTERIANS.
1. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. — A history of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland would be, in effect, a history of that country; for since its establishment by the Reformation its political and religious history have flowed on in one and the same channel. Christianity was planted in Scotland about the beginning of the 3rd century; and it is claimed that the early churches, particularly those of the ancient Culldees, were non-prelatical. Under the vigorous missions of Palladius and Augustine they were, however, reduced to conformity with the rule of Rome, and so remained until the period of the Reformation. At that time the corruption of the hierarchy, its encroachments on the civil power, and its greedy appropriation of the right of patronage to benefices, had created a wide-spread dissatisfaction, and prepared the way for the favorable reception of the principles of the Reformation. For twenty years persecution followed, and many were burned at the stake, among whom were Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart. The first general and public movement leading to the organization of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was the drawing-up of a common bond or covenant, known as "The First Covenant," and subscribed at Edinburgh, Dec. 3,1557, by several of the most powerful of the Scotch nobility and a large number of lesser barons and influential country gentlemen, known subsequently (on account of their frequent use of the word congregation to designate those for whom they professed to act) as lords of the congregation. The signing of the covenant was followed by a proclamation from the queen regent forbidding any one to preach or administer the sacrament without the authority of the bishop. At length, however, the party of the Reformers triumphed, and in the year 1560 (Aug. 17-24) the Parliament abolished the Roman Catholic worship, adopted a confession of faith agreeing with the confessions of the Reformed churches on the Continent, appointed ministers of the Protestant religion in eight principal towns, and assigned the remaining portions of the country to five other ministers as superintendents who were to take temporary charge of the interests of religion in their several districts.
On Dec. 20, 1560, the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was constituted in Edinburgh, consisting of six ministers and thirty-four laymen. Up to this period, the Scottish Reformers had followed, as their rule of worship and doctrine, the Book of Common Order used by the English Church at Geneva. In April, 1560, however, the Privy Council appointed a committee of five persons, including Knox, "to commit to writing their judgments touching the reformation of religion." This First Book of Discipline, setting forth a polity adapted to the existing condition of affairs, though adopted by the Church, was rejected by the nobles, who wished to appropriate to themselves the patrimony of the old Church. In 1581 the Second Book of Discipline, drawing its system directly from the Scriptures, was adopted by the Assembly, and this-confirmed in 1592 by King James, along with the Westminster documents-is still in force. Nothing but the undaunted perseverance of those two eminent men, John Knox and Andrew Melville, succeeded at last in procuring the complete recognition of the Calvinistic faith and the Presbyterian form of government as the established religion of Scotland, which was finally and formally effected by act of Parliament and with the consent of king James (I of England and VI of Scotland) in the year 1592.
The duplicity of the king, however, soon became apparent, for within a few years he intrigued to bring about the establishment of Episcopacy, and to assimilate the two national churches of Scotland and England. In this he was followed by his successors, Charles I, Charles II, and James II. The resistance of the people, the bloody persecutions that ensued, the civil turmoil, and the subsequent downfall of the Stuart dynasty, are matters of history. From 1660 to 1688, the Church was in the wilderness, scourged by such men as Claverhouse (q.v.) and Dalziel (q.v.), but leaving the record of many noble martyrdoms-as given in the story of the Scots Worthies and the Cloud of Witnesses. SEE COVENANT AND SOLEMN LEAGUE. Under William and Mary, Presbyterianism again became ascendant. In 1690 an "Act of Settlement" was passed, prelacy was abolished, and the Westminster Confession recognized as the creed of the Church. But the settlement of the Church on this basis was objected to by a small body of earnest men, the "Reformed Presbyterians," who had already distinguished themselves in zeal for the "Covenants" as securities alike for the freedom of the Church and the Christianity of the State, and who now felt unable either to enter into the Church or to give their unqualified adherence to the constitution of the State. Many of the more earnest descendants of the
Covenanters (q.v.) protested against the reception of such men into the Church, and, finding their protest in vain, withdrew, and organized the Reformed Presbyterian Church. (See below.) Though this secession took place in 1681, the churches were not finally organized into a presbytery till 1743. Upon the union of the two kingdoms in 1707, Presbyterianism obtained every guarantee that could be desired. Since that time it has continued to be the established religion of Scotland, as much as Episcopacy is that of England.
The only confession of faith legally established before the Revolution of 1688 was that which is published in the History of the Reformation in Scotland, attributed to John Knox. It consists of twenty-five articles, and was the confession of the Episcopal as well as of the Presbyterian Church. The Parliament, however, during the Commonwealth, adopted the Westminster Confession. At the Revolution this confession was declared to be the standard of the national faith; and it was ordained by the same acts of Parliament which settled Presbyterian Church government in Scotland, "that no person be admitted or continued hereafter to be a minister or preacher within this Church unless he subscribe the [that is, this] confession of faith, declaring the same to be the confession of his faith." By the act of union in 1707 the same is required of all professors, principals, regents, masters, and others bearing office.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, then, and what are called the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, contain the publicly recognized doctrines of this Church; and it is well known that these formularies are an embodiment of the Calvinistic faith. No liturgy or public form of prayer is used in the Church of Scotland, the minister's only guide being the Directory for the Public Worship of God. The administration of the Lord's Supper, as a general thing observed four times a year, is conducted with simple forms, but is accompanied, usually preceded and followed, by special religious services, consisting of prayers and exhortations. A metrical version of the Psalms on the basis of that of Rous (died 1659) is used, and supplementary hymns have recently been introduced.
The provision which has been made by the law of Scotland for the support of the clergy of the Established Church consists of a stipend, a small glebe of land, and a manse (parsonage house) and office houses. By an act of Parliament passed in 1810, £10,000 per annum were granted for augmenting the smaller parish stipends in Scotland. By this act the lowest stipend assigned to a minister of the establishment is £150 sterling, with a small sum, generally £8 6s. 8d., for communion elements. Patronage, in part abrogated at the Revolution, was restored in 1712 by act of Parliament. Scottish independence rebelled at this, the people claiming the right to elect their own clergy, or at least to exercise a veto over the appointment of an unsatisfactory one; and the controversy which ensued led to secession, which was ushered in first by indifference, and was helped on by the renewal of the old interest. From that time a worldly spirit crept into the Church; men of talents, but lax in principle, obtained possession of influential positions; the leaven of moderatism— ridiculed in Dr. Witherspoon's Characteristics— set extensively to work; and in the course of time Arminian, Pelagian, and even Socinian tenets were propagated, with little attempt at concealment. The result was the secession of several important bodies from the Church. The first who formally withdrew were the Covenanters, or Cameronians, who objected to the interference of the state authorities in Church affairs, and to the Erastian principle involved in the existing establishment, as inconsistent with the covenant to which the Church had sworn. SEE CAMERONIANS. A few faithful men, led by Ebenezer Erskine, endeavored to breast the tide; but, being deposed by the commission of the Assembly, who were Moderates, they seceded in 1733, and formed themselves into a distinct body, called the Associated Presbytery, more commonly known as Seceders. They became known as the Secession Church. This secession proved a severe blow, and shook the establishment to its foundations. Another secession arose in 1760, and from it was formed the Presbyterians of Relief, better known as "The Relief Synod." These bodies have since been united, and constitute the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Those who remained in the Established Church were divided in opinion on the subject of lay patronage. The sentiment against it continued to grow because of the indifference of the clergy. For a while moderatism held the upper hand, but its reign was dreary. Under the dominant influence of principal Robertson, whose studies were more devoted to elegant literature than to the Holy Scriptures, the preaching of tie Gospel was superseded by moral essays, and Dr. Blair's cold and polished sermons were regarded as models of the highest excellence. This state of things continued till near the close of the 18th century, when Christians in Scotland began to share in that general reviving of evangelical principles which then pervaded Great Britain. A positive reaction set in, and gradually new life began to animate the frozen limbs of the Established Church. The evangelical party took heart, and constantly increased in strength. Dr. Andrew Thomson, Dr. Chalmers, and others came upon the stage of action, and under their vigorous lead a new era was inaugurated. The Assembly entered with zeal into the subject of foreign missions, while it multiplied churches to supply the need at home. The burden of patronage was felt to be a great hindrance to the progress of vital piety and active effort, and the autonomy or independent jurisdiction of the Church became a topic of earnest debate.
In 1834 the General Assembly passed the celebrated "Veto Act," giving to the Church courts the power of rejecting a presentee if judged by them unfit. This act was set aside by the civil court, and subsequently, on appeal, by the House of Lords, in the Auchterarder case, in 1839. The Assembly yielded so far as the temporalities were concerned, but at the same time unequivocally maintained the principle of non-intrusion as one that could not be given up consistently with the doctrine of the headship and sovereignty of Christ. The Strathlbogie case next occurred, bringing the civil and ecclesiastical courts into direct collision, which ended at last in the Disruption of 1843, under the lead of Chalmers, Cunningham, Welsh, Candlish, and Dunlop; 470 members signed an "Act of Separation and Deed of Demission," and the Free Church of Scotland was organized. Soon after the separation of 1843 an act of Parliament was passed, called "Lord Aberdeen's Act," to define the rights of congregations and presbyteries in the calling and settlement of ministers. But in 1874 this was suspended by another act, whereby patronage was abolished, and the right of electing ministers was vested in the people. Government still reserves, however, the appointment of theological professors. The Free Church carried off about one half the communicants of the Established Church, and became a rival communion in most of the parishes of Scotland. The three denominations-the Established Presbyterian Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Free Church (in which the Reformed Presbyterian Church merged in 1876) -constitute the chief Presbyterian churches of Scotland at the present time. SEE SCOTLAND, PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES OF.
The government, discipline, and worship of the Established Church of Scotland are in all respects the same as those of other Presbyterian churches. According to the constitution of the Church, there is a kirksession in every parish, consisting of the minister and a body of lay elders. All the ministers within a certain district, with one lay elder from each session, constitute the Presbytery of that district. The next higher court is the Provincial Synod, which embraces several neighboring presbyteries. The highest court of all is the General Assembly. It is a representative court, consisting of 247 members and 178 elders, the greater part chosen by the presbyteries, but a considerable number of elders chosen by the town-councils and universities. It meets early in May, is presided over by its moderator, and has the presence of a lord high commissioner, appointed by the crown, who, however, is not a member, and has no authoritative voice in the court. A "Commission of Assembly" meets in August, November, and March, consisting of the members of Assembly, and a minister named by the moderator, to attend to matters remitted to it by the Assembly, or that may arise in the intervals. In consequence of the connection with the state, there are certain peculiarities connected with the support of the ministers which it may be proper to notice. Dr. Jamieson, in his interesting sketch of the "Church of Scotland" contributed to the Cyclopaedia of Religious Denominations, thus describes these peculiarities: — "The provision made for parish ministers by the law of Scotland consists of a stipend arising from a tax on land. It is raised on the principle of commuting tithes or teinds into a modified charge-the fifth of the land produce, according to a method introduced in the reign of Charles I, ratified by William III, and unalterably established by the treaty of union. To make this intelligible, we may observe that at the Reformation the teinds were appropriated by the crown, with the burden of providing for the minister. In after-times they were often bestowed as gifts on private individuals totally unconnected with the parish, and who thus came so far in place of the crown. These persons received the name of titulars, from being entitled to collect from the heritors the unappropriated teinds; but they were also bound on demand to sell to any heritor the titularship to his own teinds at nine years' purchase. From the collective land-produce of a parish the court of teinds determines how much is to be allotted for the support of the minister. This general decree having fixed the amount, a common agent, appointed by the court, proceeds to divide it proportionally among the landholders, and this division, when fully made, is sanctioned by the court. It is called a decreet of modification, and forms the authority or rule according to which alone the minister collects his stipend. According to this system, which has proved a very happy settlement of a quaestio vexata, the burden falls not on the farmer or tenant, as in other countries where tithing exactions are made, but on the landholder or titular of the teinds, to whom a privilege of relief is opened by having them fixed. He may value them that is, to use the words of principal Hill, 'lead a proof of their present value before the Court of Session, and the valuation, once made by authority of that court, ascertains the quantity of victual or the sum of money in the name of teind payable out of his lands in all time coming.' The advantage of this system is that it enables proprietors to know exactly the extent of the public burdens on their estate; and the teind appropriated to the maintenance of the minister or to educational and other pious uses, being sacred and inviolable, is always taken into account, and deducted in the purchase or sale of lands. But that would not be so advantageous to the minister by fixing his income at one invariable standard were it not that provision is made for an augmentation of stipend every twenty years in parishes where there are free teinds. This is done by the minister instituting a process before the judges of the Court of Session. who act as commissioners for the plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds; and in this process the act of 1808 requires that he shall summon not only the heritors of the parish, but also the moderator and clerk of presbytery as parties. In the event of the minister being able to prove a great advance in the social and agricultural state of the parish, the judges grant his application, allocating some additional chalders; but where the arguments pleaded appear to them unsatisfactory, they give a small addition, or refuse altogether. In many parishes, however, from the teinds being exhausted, ministers had no prospect of augmentation in the ordinary way; but redress was afforded through the liberality of Mr. Percival's government in 1810, who used his influence in procuring an act of Parliament to be passed according to which all stipends in the Establishment should, out of the exchequer, be made up to £150. This, though but a poor and inadequate provision for men of a liberal profession, was felt and gratefully received at the time as a great boon. But such is the mutability of human society that these stipends, which in 1810 formed the minimum, are now greatly superior to many which at the same period were considered, for Scotland, rich benefices; but which, being wholly paid in grain, have, through the late agrarian law, fallen far below that standard. The incomes of city ministers are paid wholly in money. Besides the stipend, every parish minister has a right to a manse or parsonage-house, garden, and offices-the style as well as the extent of accommodation being generally proportioned to the value of the benefice and the character of tie neighborhood. According to law, the glebe consists of four acres of arable land, although, in point of fact, it generally exceeds that measure; and, besides, most ministers have a grass glebe, sufficient for the support of a horse and two cows. All these, by a late decision of the Court of Session, are exempt from poor-rates and similar public burdens. Ministers in royal burghs are entitled to manses only." The statistics of the Established Church of Scotland vary very slightly from year to year. The number of parish churches was in 1877, 1222. In addition to these there are forty-two Parliamentary churches, and a considerable number of chapels of ease and quoad sacra churches, which, under a scheme efficiently organized by the Rev. Prof. Robertson, are in course of being endowed and erected into new parishes in the terms of Sir James Graham's Act, passed in 1846. Altogether there are about 1500 congregations and 1384 ministers.
The following are the chief missionary and other benevolent undertakings of the Church:
1. The Home Mission Scheme. — It has three departments:
(1.) Church Extension. Local efforts in places requiring additional church accommodation are supplemented by grants from the funds of the scheme. In 1876, thirty-three churches, providing nearly 32,000 sittings, were thus aided.
(2.) Mission Churches, designed to be centers of mission work in destitute localities or in the more populous parishes of Scotland. These churches or chapels number ninety-three, with upwards of 22,000 worshippers. The Home Mission Committee insist that they shall be served with invariable regularity.
(3.) Mission Stations, not having the permanent character of churches, intended as points of evangelical work among the lapsed, non-church- going, or far-scattered people. There are seventy-seven such stations supplied by licentiates, or students in divinity, or qualified evangelists. Besides these operations, aid is given in certain cases towards the employment of Scripture-readers in the Highlands and Islands. The revenue of the scheme in 1876 from church-collections and legacies amounted to £11,780.
2. Of undertakings more especially affecting the clergy of the Church may be noticed the Association for Augmenting the Smaller Livings, i.e. livings under £200 per annum. For this purpose the sum of £7305 was reported to last General Assembly. Also the Ministers and Professors Widows Fund, to which every parish minister and every professor in the national universities is bound to subscribe. The capital sum of the fund amounts to upwards of £212,000. Ministers and professors may subscribe according to one or other of four rates, viz. £3 3s., £4 14s. 6d., £6 6s., or £7 17s. 6d.
3. A report is yearly presented to the Assembly as to the condition of the Sabbath-schools in connection with the Church. Between 15,000 and 16,000 persons are engaged in the work of teaching 167,000 juvenile scholars, and upwards of 24,000 adults of both sexes.
4. Colonial Missions seek to provide means of grace for Scottish colonists in the various British dependencies and elsewhere. When the scattered communities are organized into churches-some large and influential, as in the dominion of Canada-the aid given by the Home Church is curtailed, if not wholly withdrawn. But the committee have a great sphere of labor in the ever-enlarging and developing colonial empire of Great Britain. Agents of the mission report from British Columbia, the South American continent, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, India. Under the Colonial Mission are also included European stations, such as Paris and Dresden, where ministrations are maintained for the benefit of resident Presbyterians. The total income of the scheme in 1877 was upwards of £15,000.
5. Jewish Missions. — The efforts put forth in connection with this mission are concentrated on Turkey and Egypt. It has agents in Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, Beyrut, and Salonica. The sum of the charge on which it operates is upwards of £7000.
6. Missions to the Heathen. — The scenes of these missions, comprehended under the word "Foreign Missions," are India, Africa, and China. It can scarcely, indeed, be said that a mission exists in China; but steps have been taken to originate a Christian work in that vast empire. The agency in Africa is not yet complete. A station has been formed and is partly occupied by a company of Christian artisans, headed by a medical missionary, in the Highlands of East Africa-the station having received the name of Dr. Livingstone's birthplace, Blantyre. The Indian missions retain the mixed character which Scotch missions in India have hitherto borne- educational and evangelistic. In the three great Presidency towns, the educational institutions are still maintained, and are at present in a state of efficiency. Evangelical efforts are also carried on in connection with the institutions and in native churches. In the Punjab there are stations at Sealkote, Gûjrat, and Wazirabad. An interesting work is also promoted among the Highlanders of India at Darjeeling, and outside the British territory an agency is maintained at Chumba, whose feature is that the mission, conducted by Europeans, is kept apart from the Church, presided over by natives. The income of these foreign missions for the year ending January, 1876, was upwards of £19,000.
7. Two other agencies may be briefly noted:
(1.) Continental and Foreign Churches Committee. — Established as the medium of communication between the churches and other Reformed churches of Christendom. It is charged with the duty of cultivating friendly relations with such churches, and administering such sums as the liberality of the Church bestows on societies and agencies abroad seeking to spread the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. For many years the committee have been able to aid the Central Society of the French Reformed Church, and the Evangelization Commission of the Waldensian Church in Italy. From time to time it has aided other agencies. The care of certain chaplaincies on the Continent intended for the benefit of Presbyterians temporarily resident there also devolves on this committee. Its income in 1876 was £1205.
(2.) The Army and Navy Chaplains Committee are entrusted with the oversight of chaplains laboring in garrison towns or at the camps. The convener of the committee communicates, in behalf of the Church, with the naval and military authorities.
No Church in Europe has taken more prompt and energetic steps for the general diffusion of school education than the Presbyterians of Scotland. As early as 1695 it was enacted "that there be a school founded and a school-master appointed in every parish by advice of the presbyteries, and to this purpose that the heritors do, in every congregation, meet among themselves, and provide a commodious house for a school, and modify a stipend to the school-master, which shall not be under ten merks (£6 13s. 4d.) nor above twenty merks." As almost all the population of the country is Presbyterian, the common-school system long sustained a parochial character. When, in 1843, the Free Church of Scotland was organized, it was resolved to erect schools in connection with the congregations of the Free Church, and the educational scheme which in consequence sprang up was co-extensive with the parochial system of the Established Church. In 1873, of 2108 schools inspected by the government inspectors, 1379 belonged to the Established and 577 to the Free Church; while of non- Presbyterian schools there were eighty-six belonging to the Episcopal and sixty-six to the Catholic Church. The introduction of the new national system of education has in a great measure superseded the operations of the educational scheme of the Church of Scotland. Few schools now remain in relation to it. The care of the committee is now chiefly occupied with providing religious instruction in all schools desiring it, and giving grants for excellence in religious instruction. The Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen are in organic connection with the Church of Scotland by means of theological professorships; while at St. Andrew's an entire college, St. Mary's, is appointed solely to the teaching of theology and the languages connected with it. The theological institutions are the theological faculties of the several national universities. The number of professors is, at Edinburgh, four; Glasgow, four; St. Andrew's, three; Aberdeen, four. Students, 198. Students of divinity are required to attend a full course of arts at the university, and three years more at the Divinity Hall. The sessions in both cases last about five months. Students in this and the other Presbyterian churches of Scotland have often assistance from bursaries or scholarships, which are allotted chiefly by competition. See Hetherington, Hist. of the Church of Scotland; M'Crie, Lives of Knox and Melville; id. Sketches of Church History, and Review of Scott; Fessenden, Encycl. of Relig. Knowledge; Cyclop. of Relig. Denominations (Lond. and Glasg.); Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac; Schem, Ecclesiastes Year Book.
2. UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. — In 1732 the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, as retiring moderator of the Synod of Stirling and Perth, preached a sermon on Christ as the Cornerstone, in which he sharply inveighed against the corruptions and abuses that had crept into the Scottish Church. His sermon gave great offence, and incurred the censure of the synod. He appealed to the General Assembly, who condemned and rebuked him. Upon entering his protest, they handed his case over to the Commission. The Commission summarily suspended Erskine and three other ministers — Wilson, Moncrieff, and Fisher, who had joined in his protest cast them out of ministerial communion. The four brethren, deeming this treatment unconstitutional and unscriptural, immediately organized themselves into a presbytery, to which they gave the name of the Associate Presbytery, and published their testimony. or vindication. of their secession. The next Assembly showed a disposition to make concessions, but the seceders refused to listen. How far they were right in this has been debated. That they were not satisfied to return to the bosom of the Establishment is clear, for they went on to gather congregations and appoint a professor of theology; and, in consequence of their activity and the popular sympathy, they increased rapidly. The Assembly next proceeded to harsher measures, and in 1740 deposed the seceding ministers, now eight in number. The doors of the churches were closed against them, and some of them, as Moncrieff, preached all winter in the open air. Great difficulty was found in procuring sites for houses of worship. Still they grew, and in 1745 the presbytery expanded into a synod with thirty settled congregations and sixteen vacancies. But now a dissension arose about the burgess oath, and in 1747 they split into two synods. The General Associate Synod, or Anti- burghers, denounced the oath as sanctioning the Establishment with all its corruptions; the Associate Synod maintained that it only referred to the true Protestant faith, in opposition to popery. After seventy-three years of separation, during which each throve and sent offshoots to other parts of the world, both branches reunited (a few only standing aloof) in 1820, under the name of the United Secession Church, when the new body embraced 373 congregations.
The Relief Church was the result of Mr. Gillespie's deposition by the General Assembly in 1752. He had refused to assist in intruding an obnoxious presentee over the parish of Inverkeithing. After his deposition he continued to preach in Dunfermline, but labored alone for several years. At length, being joined by Messrs. Boston and Colier, the three constituted the Relief Presbytery. Soon after another presbytery was necessary, and in 1775 (Eadie says 1773) the two met at a synod. It was characteristic of the Relief Church to maintain free communion with all true Christians, and to disapprove of the very principle of establishments. They founded a divinity hall, and increased to seven presbyteries, 114 congregations, and 45,000 communicants.
These two bodies, the United Secession and the Relief, having so much in common, for some time contemplated a union, which was at last consummated in Edinburgh, May 10, 1847, in Tanfield Hall, Canonmills. They took the title of the United Presbyterian Church. In common parlance, they are often familiarly spoken of as the "U. P. Church." They constitute a very popular and powerful body of Christians in Scotland, reporting, as the statistics of May, 1876: number of congregations, 620; of elders, 5075; members, 190,242; Sunday-school teachers, 12,129; Sunday- school scholars, 92,502; total income for 1875, £419,965. In the synod held at Edinburgh May 11, 1876, its sanction was given by a vote of 373 to 45 for the union of the United Presbyterian congregations in England with the English Presbyterian Church; and an animated discussion took place in advocacy of separation of the Church from the State. The following are the articles of the basis as adopted by the two synods:
"1. That the Word of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule of faith and practice.
"2. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, are the confession and catechisms of this Church, and contain the authorized exhibition of the sense in which we understand the Holy Scriptures, it being always understood that we do not approve of anything in these documents which teaches, or may be supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion.
"3. That Presbyterian government, without any superiority of office to that of a teaching presbyter, and in a due subordination of Church courts, which is founded on and agreeable to the Word of God, is the government of this Church.
"4. That the ordinances of worship shall he administered in the United Church as they have been in both bodies of which it is formed; and that the Westminster Directory of Worship continue to be regarded as a compilation of excellent rules.
"5. That the term of membership is a credible profession of the faith of Christ as held by this Church-a profession made with intelligence, and justified by a corresponding character and deportment.
"6. That with regard to those ministers and sessions who think that the second section of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith authorizes free communion (that is, not loose or indiscriminate communion, but the occasional admission to fellowship in the Lord's Supper of persons respecting whose Christian character satisfactory evidence has been obtained, though belonging to other religious denominations), they shall en)joy what they enjoyed in their separate communions— the right of acting on their conscientious convictions.
"7. That the election of office-bearers of this Church, in its several congregations, belongs, by the authority of Christ, exclusively to the members in full communion.
"8. That this Church solemnly recognizes the obligation to hold forth, as well as to hold fast, the doctrine and laws of Christ; and to make exertions for the universal diffusion of the blessings of his Gospel at home and abroad.
"9. That as the Lord hath ordained that they who preach the Gospel, should live of the Gospel; that they who are taught in the Word should communicate to him that teacheth in all good things: that they who a e strong should help the weak; and that, having" freely received, they should freely give the Gospel to those who are destitute of it— this Church asserts the obligation and the privilege of its members, influenced by regard to the authority of Christ, to support and extend, by voluntary contentions, the ordinances of the Gospel.
"10. That the respective bodies of which this Church is composed, without requiring from each other an approval of the steps of procedure by their fathers, or interfering with the right of private judgment in reference to these, unite in regarding as still valid the reasons on which they have hitherto — maintained their state of secession and separation from the judicatories of the Established Church, as expressed in the authorized documents of the respective bodies; and in maintaining the lawfulness and obligation of separation from ecclesiastical bodies in which dangerous error is tolerated, or the discipline of the Church or the rights of her ministers or members are disregarded.
"The United Church, in their present most solemn circumstances, join in expressing their grateful acknowledgment to the great Head of the Church for the measure of spiritual good which he has accomplished by them in their separate state, their deep sense of the many imperfections and sills which have marked their ecclesiastical management, and their determined resolution, in dependence on the promised grace of their Lord, to apply more faithfully the great principles of Church-fellowship, to be more watchful in reference to admission and discipline, that the purity and efficiency of their congregations may be promoted, and the great end of their existence as a collective body may be answered with respect to all within its pale land to all without it, whether members of other denominations or 'the world lying in wickedness.'
"And, in fine, the United Church regard with a feeling of brotherhood all the faithful followers of Christ, aid shall endeavor to maintain the unity of the whole body of Christ by a readiness to co-operate with all its members in all things in which they are agreed." The United Presbyterian Church is a voluntary Church. The doctrine of its voluntary condition is not formally contained in any portion of her standards, but it is distinctly implied. She holds to the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, but she objects to every part of the Westminster Confession "which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion." "Her creed," says Eadie, "is that the exalted Jesus is the only King and Head of his Church, and that this headship wholly supersedes the patronage and endowment of the Church by civil rulers. She believes, indeed, that Christ is King of nations, and that therefore nations should serve God, and that all rulers and magistrates are bound to glorify him in their respective spheres and stations. But such service and such glorification of God must be in harmony with the revealed mind of Christ; and the duty of endowing Christianity nowhere appears among the statutes of the New Testament States which establish Christianity venture beyond divine enactment, and contravene the spirituality of that kingdom which 'is not of this world.' It is plain, too, from recent events in Scotland and England, that neither purity nor freedom can exist as it ought in an established Church. Spiritual independence can flourish only in a Church which has no connection with the State." Ebenezer Erskine said in his day, "There is a great difference to be made between the Church of Scotland and the Church of Christ in Scotland; for I reckon that the last is to a great extent drawn into the wilderness by the first; and since God in his adorable providence has led us into the wilderness with her, I judge it our duty to tarry with her for a while there, and to prefer her afflictions to all the advantages of a legal establishment." Christ's house, according to Ebenezer Erskine, is "the freest society in the world." It should bear no trammels, and it bore none for 300 years. Accordingly the United Presbyterian Church is a free Church, and will not submit to any law of patronage. The Relief Church had its origin in this grievance; and the Secession Church, while it had a special struggle for doctrine, no less distinctly vindicated the rights of the people. Pastors are therefore chosen by the united voice of the members in full communion; for Christ's ordinances are meant solely for Christ's people. The Presbytery exercises no control whatever over the popular suffrage. It sends one of its members to moderate in the call, and sees that the call is gone about in a regular way. No canvassing is allowed, and the whole work of the Presbytery is, in fact, to guard and preserve purity of election. The Presbytery sustains the call after being convinced- that there is nothing to vitiate it as a free expression of the mind of the people. The minister so called may either be one who is or has been in a charge, or he may be what is called a probationer. The vacant churches are supplied by these probationers— a body of men who have finished the educational curriculum appointed by the Church, been examined by their respective presbyteries, and licensed as persons qualified to preach the Gospel, and fit, if they shall be called, to take the pastoral charge of a congregation. The probationers are thus a body of lay preachers, authorized candidates for the ministry. They are sent among the vacant churches without partiality and by rotation, that their gifts may be tried, and sometimes they are located for months together at a missionary station. When a probationer is called, and accepts the call, he appears before the Presbytery in whose bounds the Church calling him is situated, and preaches what are called trial discourses. Such appearance in the Presbytery on the part of the pastor elect is to win the confidence of his brethren. After all the prescribed trials have been gone through and sustained, a day for the ordination is fixed. One of the ministers of the Presbytery is appointed to preside and ordain, and another is appointed to preach. An edict*1 is at the same time appointed to be publicly served in the congregation by the officiating minister or preacher at least ten days before the day of ordination. Upon the day fixed, the Presbytery meets at the appointed time and place, and is constituted by the moderator. The officer is then sent to the assembled congregation to intimate that the Presbytery has met, and requiring all who have any valid objections to the ordination being proceeded with immediately to appear before the Presbytery and state them. The officer having returned, and no objectors appearing, the Presbytery then proceeds to the place of worship. If objections are made, they must be decided upon before the ordination takes place. After sermon, the moderator gives a brief narrative of the different steps of procedure regarding the call. He then calls on the candidate for ordination to stand up, and in presence of the congregation puts to him the questions of the formula. But before proposing the ninth question, he asks the members of the congregation to signify their adherence to the call by holding up their right hands. These steps being taken, the moderator comes down to the platform, where the candidate kneels, and, surrounded by the other brethren of the Presbytery, he engages in solemn prayer, and towards the conclusion of the prayer, or after it is concluded, he, by the imposition of hands (in which all the brethren of the Presbytery join), ordains him to the office of the holy ministry, and to the pastoral inspection of the congregation by whom he has been chosen and regularly called, commending him for countenance and success to the grace of God in all the duties incumbent upon him as a minister of the Gospel. After the ordination is thus completed, the members of Presbytery give to the newly ordained pastor the right hand of fellowship, and appropriate addresses are then delivered to minister and people. These services being concluded, the moderator accompanies the newly ordained pastor to some convenient place, where the members of the congregation may acknowledge him as their minister by taking him by the right hand. The Presbytery then returns to its place of meeting, when the newly ordained minister's name is entered on the roll, and he takes his seat as a member of the Presbytery, on which the commissioners for the congregation crave extracts. A member of Presbytery is also appointed to constitute the session of the congregation and introduce the minister to his seat there. The whole procedure of the dar is entered on the Presbytery's record.
*1: The form of edict is as follows: "Whereas the Presbytery of — of the United Presbyterian Church have received a call from this congregation, addressed to A. B., preacher (or minister) of the Gospel, to be their minister, and the said call has been sustained as a regular Gospel call, and been accepted by the said A. B., and he has undergone trials for ordination; and whereas the said Presbytery, having judged the said A. B. qualified for the ministry of the Gospel and the pastoral charge of this congregation, have resolved to proceed to his ordination on the day of , unless something occur which may reasonably impede it. Notice is hereby given to all concerned that if they, or any of them, have anything, to object why the said A. B. should not be ordained pastor of this congregation, they may repair to the Presbytery which is to meet at on the said day of with certification that, if no valid objection be then made, the Presbytery will proceed without further delay. By order of the Presbytery. A. B., Moderator. C. D., Clerk." The formula put to ministers on their ordination is as follows:
"1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and practice?
"2. Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy Scriptures; it being understood that you are not required to approve of anything in these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion?
"3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from and subordinate to civil government? And do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government, as authorized and acted on in this Church, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God?
"4. Do you approve of the constitution of the United Presbyterian Church as exhibited in the Basis of Union and while cherishing a spirit of brotherhood towards all the faithful followers of Christ, do you engage to seek the purity, edification, peace, and extension of this Church?
"5. Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to save souls, and not worldly interests or expectations, so far as you know your own heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of the holy ministry?
"6. Have you used any undue methods, by yourself or others, to obtain the call of this Church?
"[The members of the Church being requested to stand up, let this question be put to them:
"Do you, the members of this Church, testify your adherence to the call which you have given to Mr. A. B. to be your minister? And do you receive him with all gladness, and promise to provide for him suitable maintenance, and to give him all due respect, subjection, and encouragement in the Lord?
"An opportunity will here be given to the members of the Church of signifying their assent to this by holding up their right hand.]
"7. Do you adhere to your acceptance of the call to become minister of this Church?
"8. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is h in Christ Jesus, to live a holy and circumspect life, to rule well your own house, and faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work to the edifying of the body of Christ?
"9. Do you promise to give conscientious attendance on the courts of the United Presbyterian Church, to be subject to them in the Lord, to take a due interest in their proceedings, and to study the things which make for peace?
"10. All these things you profess and promise through grace, as you shall be answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints, and as you would be found in that happy company?" The Church has one theological institution, with a staff of seven professors, including the principal. The number of students for 1876-77 was 107, and the average for the ten preceding years 136. Students have to pass through a full course of arts at the university before joining the theological hall and the theological curriculum is over three years, with a session each year from the beginning of November to the middle of April. Very recently a change was made in the management of the theological hall, with a view to the more efficient training of the students. It was agreed that the means of maintaining the hall should be partly by a capital fund and partly by annual contributions, and the capital fund of £40,000 has already been nearly realized. In connection with the theological hall there is a scheme of scholarships, and a committee who have charge of the distribution of these on competitive examination of applicants. In 1876 eleven special scholarships were awarded of the aggregate value of £275; and from the ordinary fund two of £20 each, ten of £15, and forty-one of £10. In 1876 the number of young people under religious instruction in Sabbath-schools and Bible classes was 103,750.
The following are among the other undertakings of the United Presbyterian Church:
Home Mission Fund. — This fund is under the direction more immediately of the Home Committee of the Board of Missions. Its object is to supplement the stipends of the weaker congregations, to support missionary stations, to aid in the support of catechists, and maintain a scheme of home evangelization.
By the Stipend Augmentation Scheme and its Surplus Fund, including arrangements which have been made with certain congregations in reference to allowances for house-rent where manse accommodation has not been provided, the following general results in regard to the stipends of ministers for the year 1877 have been obtained:
104 Stipends have been raised to £200 per annum, with manse or allowance for rent of £20.
38 Stipends are less than £200
37 " " 197
32 " " 190
14 " " 180
10 " " 170
8 " " 160 but not under £197 108.
10s., " " 190 " " 180 " " 170 " " 160 " " 157 10s
13 Stipends are under the former minimum of 157 10s.
All the other Stipends in the Church are upwards of £200 per annum.
In evangelistic effort and home evangelization £5047 were expended in 1876 under the direction of the Home Committee of the Board of Missions.
The Aged and Infirm Ministers Fund has a capital fund of £35,593, with a reserve fund of £1000, and provides an annuity of not less than £50 per annum to aged and infirm ministers and missionaries of the Church.
Manse Fund. — For this scheme £52,772 have been raised by subscriptions and donations up to December, 1876, and £49,449 expended up to April, 1877, in grants to 232 congregations; and the conditions on which these grants were offered required the congregations to raise not less than £90,341, as it is stipulated where grants are given that the manse shall be free of debt when the last installment of the grant has been paid.
The Foreign Mission Fund is to defray the expenses of the foreign missionary operations of the Church. The missions supported out of the find, nine in number, are situated in Jamaica, Trinidad, Old Calabar, Kaffraria, India, China, Spain, Japan, and Algeria. In these nine missions there are 61 ordained missionaries, 7 European medical missionaries, 2 European male teachers, 21 European female teachers, 22 ordained native missionaries, 91 native evangelists, 212 schoolmasters, 44 native female teachers, 86 other agents, 84 principal stations, 13-l out-stations, 13.212 communicants, 2033 inquirers, 197 week-day schools, 13,387 pupils, with a total educated agency of 384. The income of the Foreign Mission Fund for 1887 was £56,872 17s. 4d.
Under the direction of the synod, the Foreign Mission Board voted, during 1876, the following grants, viz.:
(1) To the Union of Evangelical Churches of France, £500;
(2) to the Evangelical Society of Lyons, £150; (3) to the Evangelical Society of Geneva, £250; (4) to the Belgian Missionary Society, £200; (5) for evangelical work in Bohemia. £150;
(6) to the Waldensian Church, £350 (including £100 towards the salary of the Rev. J. Simpson Kay of Palermo);
(7) to the Free Church of Italy, £100;
(8) for evangelical work at Aix-les-Bains, Savoy, £50; (9) to the French Canadian Missionary Society, £100; (10) for Rev. Ferdinand Cesar's work in Moravia, £75; (11) for outfit and passage of two ministers to Australia, £340;
(12) to Rev. David Sidney, Napier, New Zealand, for salary of evangelist (three years), £150; and
(13) salary of Rev. Dr. Laws, of the Nyassa mission of the Free Church.
These grants amount in all to £2715. Besides these special grants made directly by the Foreign Committee, the following special contributions by individuals were sent through the hands of the synod's treasurer:
(1) £1530 from the Theological Hall Students' Missionary Society, for pastor Yakopian's work in Cesarea, Cappadocia;
(2) £5 for Protestant churches in Bithynia; (3) £1 6s. 3rd. for Mount Lebanon Schools; (4) £100 for Protestant Church in Bohemia; (5) £50 5s. for Rev. F. Cesar's work in Moravia;
(6) £20 for the Union of Evangelical Churches in France;
(7) £45 4s. 4d. for evangelical work at Aixles-Bains, Savoy;
(8) £44 for Christian work in Paris;
(9) £25 for Reformed Church in the Netherlands; (10) £131 2s. 4d. for the Waldensian Church; (11) £50 for the Free Italian Church; (12) £4 2s. for Rev. J. S. Kay, Palermo;
(13) £5 for Mrs. Boyce's Orphanage, Bordighera;
(14) £33 6s. 8d. for Freedmen's Missions Aid Society; and
(15) £606 18s. 7d. for the Agra Medical Mission (Dr. Valentine's scheme).
These donations, destined by the donors for the objects specified, amounted in all to £2631 5s. 2nd., which, added to the grants administered by the Board-viz., £2715-make the total contribution of the Church during 1876, for objects outside the Foreign Mission, £5346 5s. 2nd. The ordinary congregational income of the Church for the year 1876 was £233,114; the missionary and benevolent income £82,927; and the benevolent income not congregational £62,226 -the total, including the English congregations, up to June, 1876, being £406,204. See Hetherington, Hist. of the Church of Scotland; Cyclop. of Religious Denominations (Lond. and Glasgow); Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac. SEE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
3. FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. — This large and useful body of Christians, now numbering nearly a million of people, was organized into a separate religious denomination in May, 1843. The circumstances which led to its formation as a Church distinct from the Establishment have already been detailed in a previous article. The conflict which at length terminated in the Disruption had its origin in the two reforming acts passed by the General Assembly of 1834, the one of which, the Act on Calls, asserted the principle of non-intrusion, and the other, usually called the Chapel Act, asserted the right of the Church to determine who should administer the government of Christ's house. Both of these acts gave rise to lawsuits before the civil tribunals, thus bringing into discussion the whole question as to the terms of the connection between the Church and the State. As the various processes went forward in the courts of law, it became quite plain to many, both of the Scottish clergy and laity, that attempts were made by the civil courts to coerce the courts of the Church in matters spiritual. Every encroachment of this kind they were determined to resist, as being contrary to the laws and constitution of the Church of Scotland, as well as an infringement on the privileges secured to her by the Act of Security and Treaty of Union.
Matters were evidently fast hastening onward to a crisis, and in the Assembly of 1842 a Claim of Rights was agreed upon to be laid before the Legislature, setting forth the grievances of which the Church complained in consequence of the usurpations of the courts of law, and declaring the terms on which alone she would remain in connection with the State. This important document was adopted by a majority of 131. The claim, however, which it contained, was pronounced by government to be "unreasonable," and intimation was distinctly made that the government "could not advise her majesty to acquiesce in these demands." This reply on the part of the supreme branch of the legislature was decisive, and put an end to all hope of averting the impending catastrophe. At the next meeting of Assembly, accordingly, the moderator, instead of constituting the court in the usual form, read a solemn protest, which he laid upon the table, and withdrew, followed by all the clerical and lay members of Assembly by whom it was subscribed. This document protests against the then recent decisions of the courts of law on the following grounds:
"1. That the courts of the Church by law established, and members thereof, are liable to be coerced by the civil courts in the exercise of their spiritual functions; and in particular in the admission to the office of the holy ministry, and the constitution of the past moral relation, and that they are subject to be compelled to intrude ministers on reclaiming congregations in opposition to the fundamental principles of the Church, and their views of the Word of God, and to the liberties of Christ's people.
"2. That the said civil courts have power to interfere with and interdict the preaching of the Gospel and administration of ordinances as authorized and enjoined by the Church courts of the Establishment.
"3. That the said civil courts have power to suspend spiritual censures pronounced by the Church courts of the Establishment against ministers and probationers of the Church, and to interdict their execution as to spiritual effects, functions, and privileges.
"4. That the said civil courts have power to reduce and set aside the sentences of the Church courts of the Establishment deposing ministers from the office of the holy ministry and depriving probationers of their license to preach the Gospel, with reference to the spiritual status, functions, and privileges of such ministers and probationers— restoring them to the spiritual office and status of which the Church courts had deprived them.
"5. That the said civil courts have power to determine on the right to sit as members of the supreme and other judicatories of the Church by law established, and to issue interdicts against sitting and voting therein, irrespective of the judgment and determination of the said judicatories.
"6. That the said civil courts have power to supersede the majority of a Church court of the Establishment, in regard to the exercise of its spiritual functions as a Church court, and to authorize the minority to exercise the said functions, in opposition to the court itself, and to the superior judicatories of the Establishment.
"7. That the said civil courts have power to stay processes of discipline pending before courts of the Church by law established, and to interdict such courts from proceeding therein.
"8. That no pastor of a congregation can be admitted into the Church courts of the Establishment, and allowed to rule, as well as to teach, agreeably to the institution of the office by the Head of the Church, nor to sit in any of the judicatories of the Church, inferior or supremeand that no additional provision call be made for the exercise of spiritual discipline among the members of the Church, though not affecting any patrimonial interests, and no alteration introduced in the state of pastoral superintendence and spiritual discipline in any parish, without the sanction of a civil court.
"All which jurisdiction and power on the part of the said civil courts severally above specified, whatever proceeding may have given occasion to its exercise, is, in our opinion, in itself inconsistent with Christian liberty, and with the authority which the Head of the Church hath conferred on the Church alone." The document goes on to protest that in the circumstances in which the Church was thereby placed, "a free Assembly of the Church of Scotland, by law established, cannot at this time beholden, and that an Assembly in accordance with the fundamental principles of the Church cannot be constituted in connection with the State without violating the conditions which must now, since the rejection by the Legislature of the Church's Claim of Right, be held to be the conditions of the Establishment." At the close of this solemn protest, the subscribers claim to themselves the liberty of abandoning their connection with the State, while retaining all the privileges and exercising all the functions of a section of Christ's visible Church. "And finally," they declare, "while firmly asserting the right and duty of the civil magistrate to maintain and support an establishment of religion in accordance with God's Word, and reserving to ourselves and our successors to strive by all lawful means, as opportunity shall in God's good providence be offered, to secure the performance of this duty agreeably to the Scriptures, and in implement of the statutes of the kingdom of Scotland and the obligations of the Treaty of Union as understood by us and our ancestors, but acknowledging that we do not hold ourselves at liberty to retain the benefits of the Establishment while we cannot comply with the conditions now to be deemed thereto attached— we protest that, in the circumstances in which we are placed, it is, and shall be, lawful for us, and such other commissioners chosen to the Assembly appointed to have been this day holden as may concur with us, to withdraw to a separate place of meeting, for the purpose of taking steps for ourselves and all who adhere to us— maintaining with us the Confession of Faith, and standards of the Church of Scotland as heretofore understood-for separating in an orderly way from the Establishment, and thereupon adopting such measures as may be competent to us, in humble dependence on God's grace and the aid of the Holy Spirit, for the advancement of his glory, the extension of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior, and the administration of the affairs of Christ's house, according to his holy Word; and we do now, for the purpose foresaid, withdraw accordingly, humbly and solemnly acknowledging the hand of the Lord in the things which have come upon us, because of our manifold sins, and the sills of this Church and nation; but, at the same time, with an assured conviction that we are not responsible for any consequences that may follow from this our enforced separation from an Establishment which we loved and prized, through interference with conscience, the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and the rejection of his sole and supreme authority as King in his Church." This document, embodying the protest against the wrongs inflicted on the Church of Scotland by the civil power, was signed by no fewer than 203 members of Assembly. When the moderator had finished the reading of the protest, he retired, followed by a large majority of the clerical and lay members of the court; and the procession, joined by a large body of ministers, elders, and others who adhered to their principles, moved in solemn silence to Tanfield Hall, a large building situated at the northern extremity of the city, in the valley formed by the Water of Leith. Here was constituted the Free Church of Scotland, which, while renouncing the benefits of an Establishment, continues to adhere to the standards and to maintain the doctrine, discipline worship, and government of the Church of Scotland. Dr. Chalmers was chosen as their first moderator, and the ordinary business was proceeded with according to the usual forms. On Tuesday, the 23d of May, the ministers and professors, to the number of 474, solemnly subscribed the Deed of Demission, formally renouncing all claim to the benefices which they had held in connection with this Establishment, declaring them to be vacant, and consenting to their being dealt with as such. Thus, by a regular legal instrument the ministers completed their separation from the Establishment; and the Free Church of Scotland assumed the position of a distinct ecclesiastical denomination, holding the same doctrines, maintaining the same ecclesiastical framework, and observing the same forms of worship as had been received and observed in the National Church. In fact, they had abandoned nothing but the endowments of the State, and even these they had abandoned, not from any change in their views as to the lawfulness of a Church Establishment, but solely because in their view the State had altered the terms on which the compact between the Church and the State had been originally formed.
The Free Church, strong in the conviction that her distinctive principles were sound and scriptural, entered upon her arduous work with an humble but confiding trust in her great and glorious Head. In the course of her history she has become united with two other bodies. In 1852 the majority of the Original Seceders, with whom the name of Dr. Thomas M'Crie, father and son, was so honorably connected, joined the Free Church; and in 1876 a union was formed with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, consisting of thirty-six ministers and thirty-six congregations. The General Assembly of the Free Church consists of 730 members, half being ministers and half ruling elders, and all appointed by the presbyteries. Each Presbytery returns one third of its ministers, and an equal number of ruling elders. The temporal affairs of each congregation are managed by a body called "The Deacons' Court." This court is composed of the minister, the ruling elders, and a body of deacons chosen, like the elders, by the members of the congregation. The spiritual interests of each congregation are attended to by the kirk-session, consisting only of the minister and elders.
In preparation for the new position in which the Church would be placed when deprived of state support, Dr. Chalmers had made arrangements some months previous to the Assembly of 1843 for establishing associations throughout the country with the view of collecting funds for the support of the ministry. With such energy and activity had these preparations been carried forward that before the day of the Disruption came 687 separate associations had been formed in all parts of the country. So extensive and ardent was the sympathy felt with the movement, not in Scotland only, but throughout the kingdom, and even throughout the world, that funds were liberally contributed from all quarters in support of the cause, and at the close of the first year of the history of the Free Church her income amounted to the munificent sum of £366,719 14s. 3rd. Nor has the source of her supply afforded the slightest symptoms of being exhausted even after the lapse of thirty-five years. On the contrary, she raised £10,250,000 in her first thirty years and has now an annual income of over £500,000. The Sustentation Fund for the support of the ministry reached in 1877 the gratifying sum of £172,641 13s. 3rd., yielding an annual salary to nearly 800 ministers of about £150 each. The Building Fund for the erection of churches and manses amounted in 1877 to
£41.179 2s. 0 ¼ d. This year (1878) a Church Extension scheme of £100,000 has been entered upon with spirit. The Congregational Fund, composed of ordinary collections at the church-doors on Sabbaths, and a great part of which goes to supplement the ministers' stipends, is £94,481 19s. 6d. The Fund for Missions in 1887-8 amounted to £83,813. There are various other objects connected with the Free Church which it is unnecessary to detail, but the sum total of the contributions for the last year was £565,195 10s. 4d., an amount which plainly indicates that its friends and supporters are still animated with an intense and undiminished attachment to the principles on which this peculiar section of the Christian Church is based. Upwards of 800 churches have been reared by the liberality of her people, who are calculated to amount to somewhere about 1,000,000. To the large majority of the churches, manses, or parsonage- houses, have also been added. The Free Church has established a divinity school in Edinburgh, called the New College, which was completed at a cost approaching £40,000, is provided with a more complete staff of professors than any similar institution in Scotland, and with more effectual means of training an educated ministry than is to be found elsewhere in Great Britain. The Free Church has also built a divinity hall in Aberdeen, and a third in Glasgow. The number of theological students in attendance on these colleges amounts in 1878 to 230.
In connection with the Free Church, a fund was instituted in 1848 for Aged and Infirm Ministers, which already exceeds £39,000. In addition to the home ministry, which in 1878 numbered 1059, there are nearly 300 settled ministers belonging to this Church in the different departments of the colonial field.
The Widows and Orphans Funds are chiefly made up of yearly contributions (compulsory) from each minister otf£5 to the Widows and £2 to the Orphans fund. At present the fund gives an annuity of £42 to each widow and £15 to each child under eighteen. Larger sums are given to the children when their mother is dead. The accumulated fund of the two schemes is upwards of £224,000. There is a society for sons and daughters of the clergy, not under the General Assembly, designed to aid ministers in the education of their families. In 1876 it paid £1758 in 125 grants, from £10 to £18 each.
The Home Mission and Church Extension Scheme. Its purpose is to keep stations supplied by preachers or catechists in thinly peopled districts; also to foster missions in mining and manufacturing localities, and other populous places, and form them into regular charges; to aid such charges until they are taken on the equal dividend platform to maintain lay evangelists, and send out ministerial evangelists from time to time; and to encourage the employment of students and others as missionaries in necessitous districts in large towns. To encourage ministers of experience to undertake mission congregations in populous places, grants of £200 a year are given for a limited time; the grant diminishing gradually from year to year, till it is extinguished. In other cases the grants are smaller. The income of the fund, derived from a church-door collection thrice in two years, donations, legacies, etc., is between £9000 and £10,000 a year. This year a special Church Extension Fund, amounting to £100,000, is being raised, and the greater part of it has been contributed in a few months.
Highland Mission. — This is a somewhat similar scheme, managed by a separate committee of the General Assembly, for districts of the country where Gaelic is spoken. It has a collection every second year. Its average revenue is about £3000.
Church and Manse Building Fund. — This is intended to help congregations in their building operations. At first it was very large, Dr. Guthrie having raised for a General Manse Fund alone about £100,000, but of late years its income has been only about £1500. A special Building Fund is contemplated for new charges.
Education Scheme. — Till recently a large proportion of the congregations had day-schools, for which grants were given. Most of these are now absorbed in the national scheme of education. There are still some schools receiving grants; but the chief remaining part of the scheme is the Normal Schools of which there are two at Edinburgh and Glasgow. The instructors receive a salary from a general fund, which is raised by monthly contributions in all the congregations, and which is divided at the end of the year according to a certain scale, proportioned to the qualifications of the respective teachers. The number of normal students, male and female for 1876-77 was 494.
College Scheme. — This provides for the support of the three theological institutions, partly by interest of endowments and partly by an annual collection at church door, donations, legacies, etc. For 1876-77 the revenue was a total of £8995. There are large Bursary and Scholarship Funds for the encouragement of students, from £10 to £100 annually.
Continental Scheme. — For aiding stations, societies, and churches on the continent of Europe. Revenue about £4000.
Colonial Scheme. — For sending out ministers to the colonies and aiding colonial churches, especially in their earlier stages. Revenue about £4000.
The Foreign Missions Scheme. — The late Rev. Dr. Duff; tile first missionary to the heathen from the Church of Scotland, went to Calcutta in 1829, and founded the India Mission of the Church of Scotland. In the previous year Dr. Wilson went to Bombay, and later, the Rev. John Anderson to Madras. In 1843 all the missionaries in India adhered to the Free Church and the old localities were continued. The Foreign Missions of the Free Church embrace India, Africa, Syria, and New Hebrides. In India, there are 6 principal and 12 branch stations in Bengal; 3 principal and 10 branch stations in Western India; 2 principal and 3 branch stations in Central India; and 1 principal and 7 branch stations in Southern India. Ill South Africa there are 6 principal and 31 branch stations in Kaffraria; 2 principal and 2 branch stations in Natal; and 1 principal station at Livingstonia. In New Hebrides, where the Reformed Presbyterians (who joined the Free Church in 1876) had their field, are 4 stations, on three islands; and in Syria, the headquarters are at Shweir, about twenty miles from Beyrut. In all, the Free Church missions embrace 107 stations, 38 European missionaries, 3 European medical missionaries, 21 European teachers, 19 European artisans, 15 native missionaries, 327 Christian teachers, and Christian laborers of various sorts. In the native churches are 3350 communicants, and about 3000 baptized adherents. The number of institutions and schools is 223, and the total number of scholars is 13,109. In the principal Indian stations many of the pupils are undergraduates of the universities. The revenue of this scheme for 1876-77 was £51,217.
Mission to Jews. — This mission was begun in 1839, and in 1843, it was continued by the Free Church, all the missionaries having adhered. At present it has stations at (l) Amsterdam, (2) Prague, (3) Pesth, (4) Breslau, (5) Constantinople. The Pesth mission has been especially blessed. The amount raised for the scheme in 1876-77 was £13,468.
The following is a summary of the contributions of the Free Church for 1876-77:
Sustentation fund .....................£.170,209
Local buildings fund ..................... 86,291
Congregational fund ....................176,290
Missions and education ............... 104,325
Miscellaneous .........................…… 28079
Total .........................……..….... 565,194
In all its operations, indeed, whether at home or abroad, the Free Church exhibits a vitality and energetic power which have gained for it a high place among Christian churches. SEE SCOTLAND, CHURCHES IN.
4. REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. — This is the only Church which claims to be legitimately descended from the Covenanted Church of Scotland in her period of greatest purity, that of the Second Reformation. It was that memorable period of Scottish history between 1638 and 1650 which formed the sera of the Solemn League and Covenant, of the Westminster Assembly, of the revolution which dethroned the first Charles and asserted those principles of civil and religious liberty which all enlightened Christians and statesmen are now ready with one voice to acknowledge and to admire. For their strict adherence to these principles Cameron, Cargill, and Renwick shed their blood, and to these principles the Reformed Presbyterian Church gloried in avowing her attachment. As has already been noticed in the article COVENANTERS SEE COVENANTERS , on the day after the execution of Charles I was known at Edinburgh, his son, Charles II, was proclaimed king at the public cross by the Committee of Estates, with this proviso, however, that "before being admitted to the exercise of his royal power, he shall give satisfaction to this kingdom in the things that concern the security of religion according to the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant." This condition or proviso was considered as so necessary to the maintenance of the constitution of the country, as well as the promotion of the great principles of civil and religious liberty, that it was enacted both by the Parliament and the General Assembly. The document issued by the latter body exhibits, in the clearest manner, their design in insisting upon the subscription by the king. It is dated July 27, 1649, and contains the following important statements: "But if his majesty, or any having or pretending power and commission from him, shall invade this kingdom upon pretext of establishing him in the exercise of his royal power-as it will be a high provocation against God to be accessory or assisting thereto, so it will be a necessary duty to resist and oppose the same. We know that many are so forgetful of the oath of God, and ignorant and careless of the interest of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, and do so little tender that which concerns his kingdom and the privileges thereof, and do so much dote upon absolute and arbitrary government for gaining their own ends, and so much malign the instruments of the work of reformation, that they would admit his majesty to the exercise of his royal power upon any terms whatsoever, though with never so much prejudice to religion and the liberties of these kingdoms, and would think it quarrel enough to make war upon all those who for conscience' sake cannot condescend thereto. But we desire all those who fear the Lord, and mind to keep their Covenant, impartially to consider these things which follow:
"1. That as magistrates and their power is ordained of God, so are they inl the exercise thereof not to walk according to their own will, but according to the law of equity and righteousness, as being the ministers of God for the safety of his people; therefore a boundless and unlimited power is to be acknowledged in no king or magistrate; neither is our king to be admitted to the exercise of his power as long as he refuses to walk in the administration of the same according to this rule and the established laws of the kingdom, that his subjects may live under him a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
"2. There is one mutual obligation and stipulation betwixt the king and his people; as both of them are tied to God, so each of them is tied one to another for the performance of mutual and reciprocal duties. According to this, it is statute and ordained in the eighth act of first Parliament of James VI, 'That all kings, princes, or magistrates whatsoever, holding their place, which hereafter shall happen in any time to reign and bear rule over this realm, at the time of their coronation and receipt of their princely authority, make their faithful promise by oath, in the presence of the Eternal God, that during the whole course of their lives they shall serve the same Eternal God to the utmost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy Word, contained in the Old and New Testaments; and, according to the same Word, shall maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of his most holy Word, and due and right ministration of his sacraments now received and preached within this realm; and shall abolish all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge according to the will and the command of God revealed in his Word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received within this realm; and shall procure to the utmost of their power to the Kirk of God, and the whole Christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming, and thus justice and equity be kept to all creatures without exception;' which oath was sworn first by king James VI, and afterwards by king Charles at his coronation, and is inserted in our National Covenant, which was approved by the king who lately reigned. As long, therefore, as his majesty who now reigns refuses to hearken to the just and necessary desires of State and Kirk propounded to his majesty for the security of religion and safety of his people, and to engage and to oblige himself for the performance of his duty to his people, it is consonant to Scripture and reason, and the laws of the kingdom, that they should refuse to admit him to the exercise of his government until he give satisfaction in these things.
"3. In the League and Covenant which hath been so solemnly sworn and renewed by this kingdom, the duty of defending and preserving the king's majesty, person, and authority, is joined with, and subordinate unto, the duty of preserving and defending the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; and therefore his majesty, standing in opposition to the just and necessary public desires concerning religion and the liberties of the kingdoms, it will a manifest breach of Covenant, and preferring of the king's interest to the interest of Jesus Christ, to bring him to the exercise of his royal powers which he — walking in a contrary way, and being compassed about his malignant counsels, cannot but employ to the prejudice and ruin of both." The stipulation was made known to Charles while he was still in Holland, where he had been for some time residing, but he refused to accede to it. The following year (1650) he set sail for Scotland, and before landing on its shores he consented to subscribe the Covenant, and the test was accordingly administered to him with all due solemnity. On the following August he repeated an engagement to support the Covenant. Yet the unprincipled monarch was all the while devising schemes for the subversion not only of Presbyterianism, but even of Protestantism in Scotland. Again, when crowned at Scone on Jan. 1, 1651, Charles not only took oath to support and defend the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but, the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant having been produced and read, the king solemnly swore them. The imposing ceremonial, however, was only designed, on the part of the profligate Charles, to deceive his Scottish subjects. Nor did the calamities in which he was subsequently involved — his dethronement and exile for several years in France — produce any favorable change upon his character. No sooner was he restored to his throne in 1660, than he forthwith proceeded to overturn the whole work of reformation, both civil and ecclesiastical, which he had solemnly sworn to support. The first step towards the execution of this project was the passing of the Act of Supremacy, whereby the king was constituted supreme judge in all matters civil and ecclesiastical. To this was afterwards added the Oath of Allegiance, which declared it to be treason to deny the supremacy of the sovereign both in Church and State. The crowning deed of treachery, however, which Charles perpetrated, was his prevailing upon his Scottish counselors to pass the Act Rescissory, by which all the steps taken from 1638 to 1650 for the reformation of religion were pronounced rebellious and treasonable; the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant were condemned as unlawful oaths; the Glasgow Assembly of 1638 was denounced as an illegal and seditious meeting; and the right government of the Church was alleged to be the inherent prerogative of the crown. The result of these acts was, that the advances which the Church and the country had made during the period of the Second Reformation were completely neutralized, and the Church of Scotland was subjected for a long series of years to the most cruel persecution and oppression. With such flagrant and repeated violations of the solemn compact into which Charles had entered with his subjects, it is not to be wondered at that, on high constitutional grounds, this body of the Covenanters, headed by Cameron, Cargill, and others, should have regarded the treacherous sovereign as having forfeited all title to their allegiance. They felt it to be impossible to maintain the principles of the Reformation, and yet own the authority of a monarch who had trampled these principles under foot, and that, too, in violation of the most solemn oaths, repeated again and again. The younger M'Crie, in his Sketches of Scottish Church History, alleges that the principle laid down by Cameron's party was, "that the king, by assuming an Erastian power over the Church, had forfeited all right to the civil obedience of his subjects-a principle which had never been known in the Church of Scotland before.' Such a view of the matter, however, is scarcely fair to the Cameronians. It was not because Charles had usurped an Erastian authority over the Church that they deemed it their duty to renounce their allegiance, but because he had broken the solemn vows made at his coronation. On that occasion he had entered, as they held, into a deliberate compact with his subjects, and yet, in the face of all his vows, he had openly, and in the most flagrant manner, broken that compact, thus setting his subjects free from all obligation to own him as king. It is quite true, as the Westminster Confession of Faith alleges, that "infidelity or difference in religion doth not make void the magistrate's just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him;" but this remark does not meet the case as between Charles and the Cameronian party. They renounced their allegiance not because the sovereign was an infidel, or differed from them in matters of religion, but solely and exclusively because he had broken a civil compact entered into between him and his Scottish subjects on receiving the crown, and confirmed by a solemn religious vow. By his own deliberate deeds the traitorous monarch had forfeited his right to rule before they had renounced their obligation to obey. Such were the simple grounds on which Cameron, Cargill, Renwick, and their followers considered themselves justified in disowning the authority of the king, and bearing arms against him as a usurper of the throne and a traitor to the country.
This earnest and intrepid band of Covenanters brought down upon themselves, by the fearless avowal of their principles, the special vengeance of the ruling powers. One after another their leaders perished on the scaffold, and thus the people who held Cameronian principles found themselves deprived of religious instructors, and wandering as "sheep without a shepherd." In these circumstances they resolved to form themselves into a united body, consisting of societies for worship and mutual edification, which were formed in those districts where the numbers warranted such a step. To preserve order and uniformity, the smaller societies appointed deputies to attend a general meeting, in which was vested the power of making arrangements for the regulation of the whole body. The first meeting of these united societies was held on Dec. 15, 1681, at Logan House, in the parish of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, where it was resolved to draw up a public testimony against the errors and defections of the times. The name which this body of Covenanters took to themselves was that of the "Persecuted Remnant," while the societies which they had formed for religious improvement led them to be designated the "Society People." "They had taken up no new principles," as Dr. Hetherington well remarks: "the utmost that they can be justly charged with is, merely that they had followed up the leading principles of the Presbyterian and Covenanted Church of Scotland to an extreme point, from which the greater part of Presbyterians recoiled; and that in doing so they had used language capable of being interpreted to mean more than they themselves intended. Their honesty of heart, integrity of purpose, and firmness of principle cannot be denied-and these are noble qualities; and if they did express their sentiments in strong and unguarded language, it ought to be remembered that they did so in the midst of fierce and remorseless persecution, ill adapted to make men nicely cautious in the selection of balanced terms wherein to express their indignant detestation of that unchristian tyranny which was so fiercely striving to destroy every vestige of both civil and religious liberty." The first manifestation of the views held by the Society People took place during the dissensions at Bothwell Bridge, when a body of the Covenanters refused to make a public avowal of their allegiance to the king in their declaration. A rude outline of the declaration was drawn up by Cargill, assisted by Henry Hall, of Haughhead, who was mortally wounded at Queensferry, and the document, being found on his person, received the name of the "Queensferry Paper." It contained some of the chief points held by the Society People; but it unfortunately embodied in it an avowal of dislike to a hereditary monarchy, as "liable to inconvenience, and apt to degenerate into tyranny." Though the paper in question emanated from only a few persons, and its errors, therefore, could not be charged upon the whole of the strict Presbyterian party, yet it was quoted without reserve by their enemies as a proof of disloyal and even treasonable intentions. To counteract the prejudices thus excited against them, the leaders of the Society People drew up deliberately a statement of their principles, which is usually known by the name of the "Sanquhar Declaration." This document, which carefully excluded all reference to a change in the form of government, was, nevertheless, classed by the persecutors along with the Queensferry Paper in all their proclamations, as if they had been identical, and made an excuse for issuing to the army the most ruthless and cruel commands to pursue to the death all who were suspected of being connected with these bold declarations. Cameron, Cargill, and ten other persons were proclaimed traitors, and a price was set upon their heads. Nothing daunted, Cargill in 1630 boldly pronounced what is known as the Torwood Excommunication. In a meeting held at Torwood, in Stirlingshire, the intrepid Covenanter, after divine service, solemnly excommunicated Charles and his chief supporters, casting them out of the Church, and delivering them up to Satan. This bold act of a Christian hero roused the government to greater fury, and a series of civil and military executions followed, down to the Revolution in 1688.
In the persecutions of this eventful period, the Society People had been subjected to painful discouragement by the loss of their able and devoted leaders. Cameron and Cargill, and many others, had sealed their testimony with their blood, but in this time of sore trial Providence graciously raised up one admirably calculated to take a prominent part in promoting Christ's cause in days of bloody persecution. The individual to whom we refer was Mr. James Renwick, who, having himself witnessed the execution of Mr. Donald Cargill, resolved from that moment to engage with his whole soul in the good cause. Having studied for the ministry in Holland, and received ordination, he returned to his native land that he might share with his persecuted brethren in their trials, and preach among them the unsearchable riches of Christ. Often, accordingly, were the Society People encouraged amid their severe hardships by his faithful instructions. Danger and persecution everywhere awaited him, but he was ready to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. In 1683, at the early age of twenty-six, he died on the scaffold with a heroism and unflinching fortitude worthy of the last of that noble band of martyrs who sealed with their blood their devoted attachment to the work of Covenanted Reformation in Scotland.
The deeper the darkness, the nearer the dawn. On the death of Charles II in 1685, his brother James ascended the throne. At heart a bigoted adherent of the Church of Rome, he sought to restore popery to the ascendant both in England and Scotland. In making the attempt, however, he rushed upon his own ruin. He fell a victim to his own infatuated policy. After bearing for a time with his tyranny, an indignant people rose as one man, and hurled him from his throne, substituting in his place William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, who, in the Revolution of 1688, restored civil and religious liberty to an oppressed and persecuted people, tc a greater extent than had ever before been enjoyed.
The arrival of the prince of Orange in England was hailed by all classes of Presbyterians in Scotland as an event likely to be fraught with blessings to their distracted country. Lord Macaulay, in his History of England, indeed, strangely accuses the Society People of eagerness to disown William. So far is this charge from being well founded, that they were the first to own and hail him as their deliverer. Thus in the "Memorial of Grievances" issued by the societies, they declare, "We have given as good evidence of our being willing to be subject to king William as we gave before of our being unwilling to be slaves to king James. Upon the first report of the prince of Orange's expedition, we owned his quarrel, even while the prelatic faction were in arms to oppose his coming. In all our meetings we prayed openly for the success of his arms, when in all the churches prayers were made for his ruin; nay, when, even in the indulged meetings, prayers were offered for the popish tyrant whom we prayed against, and the prince came to oppose. We also associated ourselves, early binding ourselves to promote his interest, and were the first who openly armed and declared our desire to join with him." But while the Society People welcomed William as an expected deliverer, they openly dissented from the Revolution settlement as detective in various points. In particular, the Covenant, so far from being adopted either in the letter or in the spirit by the State, was not even owned by the Church; and the monarch took oaths in express contradiction to it. Presbyterianism, so far from being established in all his majesty's dominions, was only established in Scotland, and that under Erastian conditions, while prelacy was established in England and Ireland, and the king himself became an Episcopalian. The establishment of these different forms of Church government in different parts of the British dominions was effected by the sole authority of the king and Parliament, even before the Assembly of the Church was permitted to meet; and thus the principle of the royal supremacy over the Church continued to be asserted, and was even incorporated with the Revolution settlement. The principal objections, then, which the Society People alleged against the Revolution settlement were.
(1) that as it left the Acts Rescissory in full force, it cancelled the attainments of the Second Reformation together with the Covenants; and
(2) that the civil rulers usurped an authority over the Church which virtually destroyed her spiritual independence, and was at variance with the sole headship of the Redeemer himself.
The defects of the Revolution settlement were due partly to William's Erastian policy, and his desire to retain the prelatic clergy within the Established Church of Scotland, but partly also to the temporizing policy of the Church itself. "'Though the acts of Parliament," as Dr. Hetherington justly remarks, "made no mention of the Second Reformation and the National Covenants, it was the direct duty of the Church to have declared her adherence to both; and though the State had still refused to recognize them, the Church would, by this avowal, have at least escaped from being justly exposed to the charge of having submitted to a violation of her own sacred Covenants. In the same spirit of compromise, the Church showed herself but too ready to comply with the king's pernicious policy of including as many as possible of the prelatic clergy within the National Church. This was begun by the first General Assembly, and continued for several succeeding years, though not to the full extent wished by William, till a very considerable number of those men whose hands had been deeply dyed in the guilt of the persecution were received into the bosom of that Church which they had so long striven utterly to destroy. It was absolutely impossible that such men could become true Presbyterians; and the very alacrity with which many of them subscribed the Confession of Faith only proved the more clearly that they were void of either faith or honor. Their admission into the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was the most fatal event which ever occurred in the strange, eventful history of that Church." It was not to be expected that the Society People could approve of the conduct either of the king or of the Church in the matter of the Revolution settlement. They occupied, accordingly, an attitude of firm and decided protest against the principles avowed by William and acted on by the Church; and they maintained that there had been a decided departure on the part of both the one and the other from the principles of the Second Reformation and the obligations of the Covenant.
Holding such views, it was impossible for the Society People to incorporate themselves with the Established Church of Scotland. They were compelled, therefore, to occupy a separate position as Dissenters from a Church whose constitution was radically vitiated, and as protesters against a professedly national government which had violated the most solemn national obligations. Three Cameronian ministers, it is true— Messrs. Shields, Linning and Boyd— applied for admission into the National Church for themselves and their people, on condition that they might acknowledge breach of Covenant, and purge out the ignorant and heterodox and scandalous ministers who had taken part in shedding the blood of the saints. But every proposal of this nature was rejected. After unsuccessful efforts to obtain redress, they at last submitted and the people who had adhered to them remained in a state of dissent.
For upwards of sixteen years after the avowal of their peculiar principles, the strict Presbyterians had remained without a stated ministry, or without any separate organization as a Church. In 1681, however, societies were formed which, though exercising no ecclesiastical functions, tended to give unity to the body, and to make such arrangements as were necessary for the maintenance of worship and ordinances, encouraging at the same time among the people a devoted attachment to Reformation principles. Availing themselves of these praying societies for nearly twenty years after the Revolution, the people waited patiently until the Lord should send them pastors. At length, in 1707, their wishes and prayers were answered, the Rev. John M'Millan, of Balmnaghie, having resigned connection with the Established Church, and joined himself to their body. For a few years before, he had been contending within the pale of the Church for the whole of the Covenanted Reformation; but instead of meeting with sympathy from his brethren, he was hastily and irregularly deposed. Having joined the Society People, he labored for many years in the work of the ministry among them with indefatigable earnestness and zeal, maintaining the principles of the Second Reformation till his dying day.
Soon after the secession of Mr. M'Millan from the Established Church. he was joined by Mr. John M'Neil, a licentiate, who, having adopted Cameronian views, had also seceded. These two faithful and zealous servants of Christ traversed the country, preaching everywhere, and encouraging the adherents of the Covenant. In 1712 the Covenants were renewed at Auchensaugh. Amid many trials and persecutions the cause went steadily forward; and in 1743 Mr. M'Millan, who had hitherto stood alone as an ordained minister, Mr. M'Neil never having been ordained for want of a presbytery, was joined by the Rev. Thomas Nairn, who had left the Secession Church in consequence of his having embraced Cameronian views. There being now two ministers, a meeting was held at Braehead on Aug. 1, 1743, when a presbytery was for the first time formed under the name of the "Reformed Presbytery." One of the first acts of the newly organized Church was to dispatch missionaries to Ireland, and by the blessing of God upon the labors of these men, and others who speedily followed, a fully organized and independent section of the Reformed Presbyterian Church was formed in the sister isle.
In Scotland a Declaration and Testimony was published in 1741, and the Covenants were renewed in1 1745, at Crawford-John, in Lanarkshire; but notwithstanding these steps, which were so well fitted to promote unity of sentiment and feeling, a few years only had elapsed when a division took place in the Reformed Presbytery, two of the brethren, Messrs. Hall and Innes, having separated from their communion in consequence of their having imbibed heretical opinions on the subject of the atonement. The two brethren, after seceding from the Presbytery, forted themselves into a new presbytery at Edinburgh, which at length became extinct. The Reformed Presbytery, in reply to their misrepresentations, found it necessary to issue a treatise in defense of their proceedings in the case of the erring brethren, as well as in refutation of the doctrine of an indefinite atonement. In 1761 a very important step was taken by the Reformed Presbytery, the emission of a Testimony for the whole of the Covenanted Reformation as attained to and established in Great Britain and Ireland, particularly between the years 1638 and 1649 inclusive.
From this time the Reformed Presbyterian Church went steadily forward, adhering to their peculiar principles with unflinching tenacity; and amid much obloquy, misunderstanding, and even misrepresentation, from the other religious denominations around them, witnessing boldly, and without compromise, for a Covenanted Reformation. Their numbers in many parts of Scotland increased beyond the means of supplying them with ministers. This was unhappily the case, for a considerable time, in various districts of the country. But at length such was the increase of ministers connected with the body that in 1810 three presbyteries were formed, and in the year following a general synod was constituted for the supervision of these presbyteries. Since that time so rapidly has the denomination advanced in numbers that in tile year 1859 the synod included six presbyteries, which consisted in all of thirty-six ordained ministers and eight vacant congregations. The synod met annually either in Edinburgh or Glasgow. The Divinity Hall met during the months of August and September, when the students, in five sessions, received the instructions of two professors, one for systematic theology, and the other for Biblical literature and Church history.
In the year 1830 the synod resolved to commence the prosecution of missionary operations. Their attention was first directed to the colonial field, particularly to Canada. Nor have they been unmindful of foreign missions, three missionaries in connection with the synod being employed in New Hebrides. There has also been a missionary laboring since 1846 among the Jews in London.
These Presbyterians have been sometimes called Cameronians, from Richard Cameron; but they are otherwise called M'Millans," or "M'Millauites," from the name of the first minister who espoused their cause after the Revolution. But these, as well as the terms "Whigs" and "Mountain Men," which are also occasionally applied to them, they regard as accidental epithets. They are sometimes also called "Covenanters," from their adherence to the National Covenant of Scotland, and to the Solemn League and Covenant of the three kingdoms. Their proper designation, however, or that which they themselves adopt, is that of "Reformed Presbyterians." They hold the Holy Scriptures to be the absolute rule of faith and conduct, and to contain the standard of these both in Church and State. Next to this they adopt the early standards of the Church of Scotland, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Church, the Books of Discipline, and the Westminster Directory for Public Worship. And, lastly, they regard the National Covenant of Scotland as a continuing obligation. To these are to be added the documents published by the body itself in explanation of their principles: namely, their Judicial Act and Testimony, the 5th edition of which was published at Glasgow in 1818; A Short Account of the Old Presbyterian Dissenters, published by authority of the Presbytery in 1806; and an Explanation and Defense of the Terms of Communion adopted by the Reformed Presbyterian Church. According to the statistical report made at the Synod in Glasgow, March 13, 1876, the Church included 42 congregations with 7500 members, and its annual contributions were £14,000. The synod then, by a vote of 57 to 6, adopted a resolution in favor of union with the Free Church, and such union was finally consummated in the General Assembly of that body, May 25, 1876.
The residuary Reformed Presbyterian Church musters in 1878 eight ministers who held back, and are still contending about their Church property. Thus the Original Seceders, popularly known as "Auld Lichts" (Old Lights), are a more considerable body. Though most of these joined the Free Church (as the true Church of Scotland free) in 1852, they have still some thirty congregations of poor but very worthy people, who consider it their mission to hold up the banner of the Covenants, and to protest against the all but universal defection of their time and country. At the union in 1852, Drs. Candlish and Thomson, of Edinburgh, White, of Haddington, and the younger M'Crie (whose father had been in former days the great pillar of the Old-Light community) were added to the Free Church. The present Old Lights are notably strict both in doctrine and practice. Unlike the New Lights, who ultimately went to form the United Presbyterian Church in 1847, they are stanch supporters of the Establishment principle, which the Free Church also upholds in theory. It is chiefly the faithlessness of the latter with respect to the Covenants which prevents the residuary "Auld Lichts" from joining the communion. SEE SCOTLAND, CHURCHES IN; also Nos. 12 and 13 below.
5. UNITED ORIGINAL SECESSION CHURCH. — In common with all true Protestants, the Synod of United Original Seceders acknowledges the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the supreme and only rule of faith and practice. They claim to be a branch of the Reformed and Covenanted Church of Scotland, and adhere to the whole of the Westminster standards as these were received by the Church of Scotland as standards of union and uniformity for the churches in the three kingdoms, and feel themselves bound by the sacred pledge given in the Solemn League and Covenant to adhere to them as such. They thus take their stand upon the principles of the first and particularly of the second Reformation, which took place between the year 1638 and 1650, and which embodied in its proceedings and settlement all the valuable attainments of the first Reformation and carried them to a greater extent. They own the morality of public covenanting, and the continued and perpetual obligation of the National Covenant of Scotland, and of the Solemn League and Covenant, upon all ranks and classes in these lands, and acknowledge the duty of renewing these covenants in a bond suited to the circumstances. As Presbyterians, they hold that the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone king and head of his Church, has appointed a particular form of government to take place therein, distinct from civil government and not subordinate to the same, and that Presbyterial Church government is the only form laid down and appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ in his Word. As they believe that Church communion consists in the joint profession of the truths and observance of all the ordinances which Christ has appointed in his Word, and that the visible unity of the Church lies in the unity of her visible fellowship, they regard free communion as an obvious violation of that unity, and hold it to be unscriptural, and that the practice encourages persons to continue in corrupt communions, by leading them to conclude that there is no conscientious ground of difference between them and the persons who make no scruple of occasionally joining with them in the intimacies of Church fellowship. In the worship of God they make use of the Psalms of David only, believing that they were delivered to the Church by the Holy Spirit to be used as the matter of public praise, and they regard hymns of human composition as unsuitable to the worship of God, and tending to endanger the purity both of the worship and the doctrines of the Church.
The Original Secession Synod dates its rise from 1733, and claims to represent the first seceders who in their testimony published in 1737 were careful to make it known that they were not dissenters from the National Church because of her civil establishment, but seceders from a corrupt and prevailing party in her judicatories, who carried on a general course of defection from the reformed and covenanting principles. The Original Secession Testimony, published in 1827, applies the principles of the Judicial Testimony to public events that had occurred up to the date of its publication, and like it was designed to be a declaration of the sense of the standards, and of the way in which they were received by the Reformed and Covenanted Church of Scotland. It is a term of ministerial and Christian communion in the body-that is, office-bearers are required to signify their approval of its principles, and members to accede to them, so far as they know and understand them.
The synod has from time to time been lessened by the separation of brethren. At present it consists of 41 congregations in Scotland, England, and Ireland; of these 29 (including one in England) are in connection with the synod in Scotland, and 12 constitute the Secession Synod in Ireland, in full communion with the Scottish Synod. The members and adherents are estimated at 6500. The income of the Scottish Synod last year amounted to about £5400.
The synod has several Home Mission stations, and also a prosperous Foreign Mission agency at Seoni, in India, under the immediate charge of Rev. George Anderson, who is assisted by two catechists. There is an orphanage in connection with the mission, having eleven children, who are well fed, clad, and educated, and it is expected that the number will shortly be materially increased. A school is also carried on, having 170 scholars, and four teachers in addition to the missionary, and one catechist; the children are instructed in English, Urdu, and Hindi. The synod is desirous of obtaining, and has ample funds for maintaining, another ordained missionary in India. The synod supports a divinity hall, which is carried on under the superintendence of the Rev. Prof. W. F. Aitken, A.M., and the Rev. Prof. James Spence. The library in connection with the hall has 1400 volumes. Under the editorship of the Rev. John Sturrock a bimonthly magazine is published having a circulation of 1200 copies.
6. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ENGLAND. — In the reign of queen Elizabeth there were two well-defined parties—the Prelatists, favored by the queen, who were satisfied with the reforms begun by king Edward; and the Presbyterians, who desired a simpler form of worship and government, like that set up by Calvin in Geneva. The first adherents of this form of Church government in England were those Protestants who returned from Frankfort, to which place they had fled for refuge in the reign of queen Mary. There they became acquainted with the Geneva platform, and, returning to their native country in the time of Elizabeth, they at first met in private houses, and afterwards more publicly, on which occasions the worship was conducted agreeably to the forms of the Geneva service- book. These latter were called Nonconformists, from their aversion to the established liturgy and hierarchy, and Puritans, from their anxiety for purity of life and worship. At the Convocation in 1562, the proposition to dispense with all ceremonies that had not the clear warrant of Scripture was lost by only one vote. Hallam says that the Puritan party outnumbered either the Roman Catholic or the Church of England, and that they composed the majority of Parliament under Elizabeth and her two successors (Const. Hist. Engl. ch. 4, n.). SEE PURITANS. They were taken up at the time with questions of doctrine and discipline, and with resistance to power exercised, as they believed, contrary to the Word of God. But they felt so much the constraint of circumstances, that they paid little heed to the development of their principles in Church government, and certainly had no thought of attempting to constitute a Church on the principles which they maintained, resting satisfied in giving effect to these principles by mere resistance in particular cases in which their consciences were aggrieved. Yet in 1572 a presbytery was formed at Wandsworth, in Surrey, by ministers of London and its neighborhood, separating from the Church of England; and other presbyteries were soon formed notwithstanding the extreme hostility of queen Elizabeth. Synods were now held occasionally. The court, looking to the episcopate as the support of its own supremacy, strove with all its might to maintain it unweakened, and enforced with reckless energy the bloody laws enacted against the Catholics on one side and the radical Protestant sects on the other. The king having established a liturgy calculated to set limits to the arbitrary freedom of Puritan worship, the Presbyterians set it down as a "worship of Baal" and a quenching of the Spirit of God. The dissension threatened to take the form of civil war, for the Presbyterians of England united with those of Scotland. On July 1, 1643, in obedience to a summons from Parliament (which summons had been issued in consequence of a remonstrance of the Presbyterian divines against prelacy), the Westminster Assembly met in Westminster Abbey. This Assembly was composed of 121 English divines, 10 lords, 20 commoners, with 5 ministers and 5 elders representing the Church of Scotland. They drew up a Confession of Faith, commonly known as the Westminster Confession, a Form of Church Government, a Directory for Public Worship, and two Catechisms, the Larger and the Shorter, which were all approved by Parliament in 1648. Parliament then enacted an ordinance making Presbyterianism the established religion of England, but without attaching any penalties to nonconformity. A loud cry has been raised against the English Presbyterians on the alleged ground that, at this period of their history, their whole efforts were directed towards the attainment of Church power. "Now, what was this Church power," says the younger M'Crie, "which the Presbyterians were so anxious to secure, and which Neal would represent as 'a civil authority over men's persons and properties? Will it be believed that it was neither more nor less than the power of keeping back scandalous and unworthy persons from the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper? This was, in fact, the great point in dispute between them and the Parliament; for the Parliament had insisted on having the supreme power in ecclesiastical matters, and had passed a law to the effect that if any person were refused admission to sealing ordinances by the Church courts, he might appeal to Parliament, which might, by virtue of its authority, compel the Church courts to receive him, whatever his character might be. The Presbyterians, as Neal himself admits, 'were dissatisfied with the men in power, because they would not leave the Church independent of the State.' And would Mr. Neal, himself an Independent, have had the Church to be dependent on the State? Would he have had the Presbyterians tamely submit to see the royal prerogatives of Christ assumed by a Parliament, after they had succeeded in wresting them out of the hands of a monarch against whom, for this very reason, the nation had long been engaged in a bloody war?" The ordinance which they had secured from Parliament in 1648, however, never 'went into practical operation, for as soon as Cromwell and the Independents rose into power, they showed an uncompromising hostility to the Presbyterians. This was partly owing to the resistance the latter had made to the trial and execution of Charles I, insomuch that they had to be driven out of the House of Commons by force before those measures could be effected. London and its neighborhood were, meanwhile, formed into twelve presbyteries, constituting the Provincial Synod of London, which continued to hold regular half-yearly meetings till 1655, the meetings of presbyteries being continued till a later date; but the whole Presbyterian system was overturned by Cromwell's Committee of Triers composed of thirty-eight persons of different sects, who were appointed in place of the Assembly for the examining and approving of all persons elected or nominated to any ecclesiastical office. Cromwell's policy aimed at bringing all ecclesiastical matters under the immediate control of the civil power.
On the Restoration. Charles II no sooner found himself firmly seated on the throne than he proved false to the Solemn League and Covenant which he had sworn to observe, restored prelacy to its former power, and gave ip the Presbyterians, who had exerted themselves for his return to persecution. The fruitless Savoy Conference (q.v.) was followed by the Act of Uniformity, which was carried into effect on St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24, 1662. Two thousand conscientious ministers who would not consent to be episcopally re-ordained, to assent to the Book of Common Prayer, or to abjure the Solemn League and Covenant, were then ejected from their benefices, and wandered forth to a life of poverty. Sixty thousand of the laity were imprisoned or fined, 5000 of whom died in prison, and the fines, confiscations, and other consequent losses of property amounted to £2,000,000 sterling. SEE NONCONFORMISTS.
After the Revolution, and the passage of the Act of Toleration in 1689, Presbyterianism revived, chapels sprang up in every part of the kingdom, and within twenty-five years the Presbyterians numbered 800 congregations. They became one of the "three denominations" who received the recognition of the State and were permitted to petition the crown in a corporate capacity, and in the business meetings of deputies from these denominations the Presbyterians had two representatives for one Baptist and one Independent.
Prosperity, however, proved more injurious than persecution, and there was an abatement of zeal and spirituality. Besides this, another cause operated disastrously. In 1691 the Presbyterians were induced to enter into Articles of Agreement with the Independents. As a consequence, Presbyterian discipline began to be relaxed, the system was not carried out, the office of ruling elder was allowed to be dropped, the disuse of Church sessions naturally followed, presbyteries and synods were given up, the churches became virtually independent, and finally Arian and Socinian errors infected the ministers and congregations to such all alarming extent that the name Presbyterian became synonymous in England with Socinian or Unitarian; old endowments, legacies of Presbyterians, being in many instances enjoyed by Unitarians. Notwithstanding the numerous Presbyterian houses of worship which had been erected, the organization of Presbyterianism was very imperfectly kept up. The "discipline" which has flourished so well in Scotland under the form of" Kirk Session" never obtained a firm footing in England, nor have the English Presbyterians ever possessed a completely organized system of presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly. Along with the extensive deviation from sound doctrine among the English Presbyterians there arose a strong feeling of discontent with the compulsory subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles which the Toleration Act required from all Dissenters. The subject was discussed in various pamphlets; and at length, constrained by the force of public opinion, government passed an act in 1779 by which every preacher or teacher of any congregation who scrupled to declare and subscribe his assent to any of the articles was allowed to make and subscribe instead thereof the declaration of Protestant belief, and was thereby entitled to similar exemptions. A subsequent statute renders qualifying in the case of Dissenters for the exercise of ministerial functions unnecessary, except in obedience to a legal requisition. But although forced subscription to the Articles was no longer required, the Protestant Dissenters, including the Presbyterians, still retained their own symbolic books which coincided in doctrine with the Thirty-nine Articles. Up to this time both Presbyterians and Congregationalists were in the habit of requiring confessions of faith at ordinations, and on such occasions ministers of both denominations frequently took part in the religious services. At the present day numbers of churches exist in England originally planted on a Presbyterian foundation, which are only Presbyterian in name, being, in fact. Socinian in faith and Independent in government. Probably there are not less than 170 such churches; but, protected by acts of Parliament and decisions of the lord-chancellors, they remain unmolested in the enjoyment of their endowments.
There existed, however, for some time in England a few congregations connected with the Church of Scotland and with the Scottish Secession Church. The former organized into a separate ecclesiastical body in 1836, but in 1843 a portion of this adhered to the Scottish Established Church, while a portion, in sisterly alliance with the Free Church of Scotland, prosecuted its work in England on the footing of a Church with separate and independent jurisdiction. In 1872 the two bodies into which the English Presbyterians finally divided-the one then called The Presbyterian Church in England, the other United Presbyterians-presented the following relative strength:
Presbyteries Churches Seitted ministers Ruling elders Communicants Missionary and benevolent collections Stipends English Pres'b. 7 132 123 546 23,966 £7,308
£27,525 United Presb. 5 105 90 560 17,861 £7,781
£18,487 Total. 12 237 213 1,106 41,827 £15,0S9
£46,012
In 1876 the statistics presented at the fortieth meeting of the Synod of the English Presbyterian Church showed that the number of communicants was 29,045, the total amount of receipts for the year £98,484, and the amount of stipends paid £38,069. The income for home missions had been £2133. Seven new fields of labor had been occupied. The expenditures of the Foreign Mission Committee had been £8268 for the support of 12 missionaries in China, besides 3 at home for rest, 56 native evangelists, and 23 students. On June 18, 1876, the first Synod of The Presbyterian Church of England was constituted by the union of the two bodies. The United Church then consisted of 11 presbyteries, with 263 congregations; 50,000 members, with a yearly income of £160.000. Il 1877 the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of England comprised 258 congregations, distributed into 10 presbyteries, with a membership of 43,434 communicants. The entire income of the Church during that year, both congregational and synodical, inclusive of £6210 2s. from special sources, was £157,455 12s.
The schemes of the Church, placed under the charge of standing committees, are as follows:
1. Home Missions, including Church Extension, Evangelization, Temperance.
2. Foreign Missions. — Principally in China, where there are 15 European missionaries and 85 native evangelists, and 35 students in training. There are 106 stations in all, many of which have been organized as churches, situated in the districts of Amoy and Swatow and the island of Formosa. In connection with these there were, at the close of 1888, 3553 communicants. There is one missionary station in India. Many of the late United Presbyterian congregations maintain more or less their connection meanwhile, as was understood at the union, with the foreign missions ot their former Church. The committee aids missions in Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Bohemia, and Russia.
3. Jewish Mission. — The sphere of this work, with one missionary, the Rev. Thomas Meyer, is London, There is a mission-hall, with reading- room. The means used are domestic visitations, public meetings in the hall, prayer-meetings, and meetings with inquirers. Thirty-seven Jews, besides casual inquirers, were more or less under regular instruction in 1877. There were three baptisms.
4. Education. — A theological seminary is maintained in London. It has three professors: the Revs. Dr. Lorimer, Dr. Chalmers, and the Rev. Mr. Gibb (resident). A generous member of the Church, R. Barbour, Esq., of Manchester, having made provision for the endowment of an additional chair, the Church is taking steps for making appointment of another professor in 1878. The committee also takes charge of superintending and aiding a number of schools, especially in rural districts.
5. Sabbath-schools. — The committee reported to the Synod in 1877 348 schools, 5382 teachers, 51,185 scholars on the roll, of whom 20,271 are children of parents belonging to the Church, and 4510 are in senior classes. Much Christian work is done among the young by other means.
6. Sustenation Fund. — This was a scheme in operation, at the date of the union, in the Presbyterian Church in England only-the United Presbyterian Church aiding its weaker congregations by another plan. This necessitates now some transitional and imperfect action. The equal dividend for last year to the congregations on the fund was £200, raising the minimum ministerial stipend to that amount. The whole sum paid as salaries was £63,214, of which forty percent passed through this fund.
7. Publications. — This committee issues the Messenger and Children's Messenger, monthly periodicals of the Church, and during the past year has prepared a memorial volume containing records of the union. It contemplates the continuance of instructive manuals, of which two have been published for the use of the Church.
Other provisions are: (a) Widows and Orphans Fund; (b) Church Building Committee; and (c) Aged and Infirm Ministers Fund. See Hume, Hist. of England; Neal, Hist. of the Puritans; Sketch of the History and Principles of the Presbyterian Church in England (Lond.); Hallam, Constitutional History of England; Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac; M'Crie, Annals of English Presbyterianism (1872).
7. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCIH IN IRELAND. — In Ireland as well as in England there was a strong Puritan section of the clergy holding Presbyterian principles during the earlier years of the 17th century, and the party was considerably strengthened by the settlement of Ulster by Scottish colonists during the reign of James I. Scottish ministers also carried over to Ireland their peculiar views. But the Presbyterian party was not consolidated into a separate community until the civil war broke out. The first Presbyterian minister who appeared in Ireland after the Reformation was the Rev. Walter Travers, the first regular provost of Trinity College, Dublin. He entered on his official duties in 1594; but, owing to the civil war in which the country was then involved, he did not remain long at the head of the university. Of those ministers who went to Ireland in the reign of James I, the earliest was Mr. Edward Brice, who became rector of Templecorran, near Carrickfergus, in the county of Antrim. About that time a number of Scotchmen obtained bishoprics in Ulster. These prelates, who had been brought up in the Presbyterian Church, and who had themselves been originally ordained by presbyters, were not at first disposed to exact conformity to the Episcopal ritual from the Scottish ministers settled around them. Thus it was that the ministers, though refusing to use the Liturgy, were permitted to preach in the parish churches and enjoy the tithes. But when the imperious Wentworth was placed at the head of the government of Ireland, a new policy was inaugurated. All the clergy were obliged to strict conformity; and in a few years all the Presbyterian ministers were driven into exile. At the time of the horrid massacre in 1641, not one of them was in the country. Thus they most providentially escaped that catastrophe. In 1642, when a Scottish army arrived in Ulster to put down the rebellion, Presbyterianism obtained a permanent footing in Ireland, and, after various struggles, a Presbyterian Church was founded by the formation of a presbytery at Carrickfergus on the 10th of June, 1642. The Presbyterian population of Ulster was greatly increased in number by immigration from Scotland about the middle of the 17th century; and notwithstanding many difficulties, from the opposition of prelates and of the civil power, the Church continued to increase. While the civil war was going on in Scotland great numbers of the Scotch emigrated to the north of Ireland, and these made a still larger addition to the Presbyterian population, a strong bond being also established between the two communicants. For a time their ministers in Ireland were silenced by Cromwell because they refused to take the "engagement" of fidelity to the commonwealth; but for the last five or six years of his administration he treated the Irish Presbyterians with less severity, and at the Restoration they numbered nearly eighty congregations, with seventy ministers. Sixty- one of these were obliged to give up the benefices into which they had been placed (Jeremy Taylor deprived thirty-six in one day), and only seven out of the seventy conformed to the Episcopal establishment. Within a few years, however, the Presbyterians organized into a compact body as the Synod of Ulster, and it is a curious fact that the Presbyterian ministers received a pension from government, under Charles II, in 1672, which regium donum (q.v.), however, was not regularly paid, and soon ceased to be expected by the Presbyterian ministers. In the reign of William the regium donum was augmented, although only to the paltry amount in all of £1200 a year. The sum has since, however, been repeatedly augmented. With the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church of Ireland, under Gladstone's ministry, the regium donum was discontinued, and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland is entirely relieved from State dependence. It was valued at fourteen years' purchase, and the sum of nearly £600,000 was paid over therefore, thus securing the division among the ministers of nearly £30,000 a year of interest. In 1710 the synod of the Presbyterian Church resolved to institute the preaching of the Gospel to the Irish in their own language. During this period of its history the Irish Presbyterian Church experienced the utmost opposition from the High-Church party. Afterwards dissensions sprang up within it, and these with reference to the most important doctrines. Irish Presbyterians could not escape the influence of the latitudinarian spirit which prevailed during the 18th century. Early in the reign of George I, some of their ministers began to speak ambiguously on doctrinal subjects, and to oppose subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith. In consequence, in 1726, a schism took place among them, and the non-subscribers formed themselves into what was called "The Presbytery of Antrim." The separatists did not obtain much support from the mass of the Presbyterian population; but not a few who remained connected with the larger body, known as "The Synod of Ulster," exhibited very little zeal in upholding and propagating the sound theology of their forefathers. Meanwhile the Scotch Seceders, who appeared in Ireland shortly before the middle of the 18th century, did much to maintain purity of doctrine in the Northern province. Their congregations rapidly multiplied, and within little more than sixty years after the organization of their first church, there were upwards of ninety Secession ministers in Ulster. In 1761 the Rev. Matthew Lynd, the first Irish Covenanting minister, was ordained at Vow, near Rasharkin, in the county of Antrim. Owing very much to the growing laxity of doctrine and discipline in the Synod of Ulster, the Covenanters, or Reformed Presbyterians, continued, from this date till the close of the century, to make steady progress; and in 1792 their first Irish Presbytery was constituted. But early in the present century indications of a religious revival appeared in the Synod of Ulster, and when Arianism was openly avowed an earnest protest was raised against it. In 1829 the Arian controversy issued in the separation of the Unitarians from the great Northern Synod and immediately afterwards the Irish Presbyterian Church, as if invigorated with new life, commenced a prosperous career. Its congregations rapidly increased; its ministers exhibited new zeal and enterprise; and some of them attracted attention all over the empire as platform-speakers and pulpit orators. In 1835 the Synod of Ulster adopted an overture requiring unqualified subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith from all its licentiates and ministers; and as the grounds of separation between this body and the Secession Synod were now removed, a union between them was happily consummated in 1840. The united body, which assumed the designation of "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland," consisted, at the time of its incorporation, of 433 congregations. Ever since the date of this union, the Irish Presbyterian Church has occupied a more commanding position in the country. It has at present under its care about half a million of people, including a large proportion of the substantial farmers and merchants of Ulster. Very few of the aristocracy were ever attached to it; but of late its members have been advancing steadily in social position; and at the present time it has in its communion seven members of Parliament, several considerable landed proprietors, and many gentlemen holding the commission of the peace.
The Remonstrant or Arian body has not increased in like proportion. After their withdrawal from the orthodox majority in 1829, the Unitarians formed themselves into an association which assumed the name of "The Remonstrant Synod of Ulster." This body has since maintained a lingering existence in the north of Ireland; but doctrinal laxity does not flourish among Presbyterians; and though the Unitarians call reckon some forty congregations in the island, their numbers, including the adherents of the Presbytery of Antrim, amount, according to the government census of 1871, only to 9373 individuals.
The Covenanters, or Reformed Presbyterians, who are all strict Calvinists, are considerably more numerous. There are besides a few congregations in Ireland connected with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, as well as a few others known by the designation of Seceders; but they form a very small item in the national census. The Irish Presbyterian Church now consists of about 600 congregations, and has not only displayed much zeal for the advancement of Protestantism in Ireland, but also of Christianity in other parts of the world. Immediately after its formation, the General Assembly inaugurated a Foreign Mission. India was selected as the scene of its missionary operations, and its agents have ever since been laboring there with encouraging success in Gujarat and Kattiawar. Connected with it there are now 10 ordained European missionaries, assisted by a staff of native catechists, colporteurs, and schoolteachers. Within the year 1888 there were 201 baptisms, and the total number connected with the native Church amounted to 2158 individuals. The mission has been maintained during the year 1888 at an expense of £13,054. Its operations have been recently extended to China, where three mission stations have been established. In addition to this mission the Presbyterian Church of Ireland supports a Jewish mission, a Continental and Colonial mission, and a mission for Soldiers and Sailors. In 1876 the Presbyterian Church in Ireland reported five synods, thirty-six presbyteries, 639 ministers, 78,445 families, and 107.262 communicants. The sustentation fund amounted to £122,000; the total ministerial income for the previous year was £513,000. The average salary of the ministers was £870. In the schools of the National Board of Education, the Presbyterian children, in 1874, numbered 115,258, equal to about 11 per cent. A Presbyterian college (Magee College) was opened at Londonderry Oct. 10, 1865. In 1846, Mrs. Magee, widow of the Rev. William Magee, a Presbyterian minister, left £20,000 in trust for the erection and endowment of a Presbyterian college. This sum was allowed to accumulate for some years, until eventually the trustees were authorized, by a decree of the lord-chancellor, to select a convenient site at or near Londonderry. The Irish Society have granted an annual endowment of £250 to the chair of natural philosophy and mathematics, and £250 for five years towards the general expenses of the college. The Rev. Richard Dill, who died in 1858, bequeathed £5000 to establish two professorships. The appointment of the trustees is vested in the General Assembly. The professors are required to sign the Westminster Confession of Faith, but no religious test is prescribed for students. The majority of the Irish Presbyterian ministers are educated in the General Assembly's Theological College at Belfast. It has a faculty of six professors, but provides only a theological curriculum. The students attending it receive their undergraduate education in the adjoining Queen's College. The Assembly College has an attendance of from 70 to 150 students; the students of the younger college are not yet nearly so numerous. Previous to the passing of the Irish Church Act in 1869, a parliamentary grant of £1750 per annum sufficed for the maintenance of six professors, at £250 each, leaving £250 to defray the expense of management. The government, on the passing of the act, granted a sum of £43,976 as compensation; and the interest of this sum together with that on £5000 subscribed by friends of the institution, and the fees of the students, make up the annual income. Patrons have recently added prizes, worth from £20 to £50 per annum. A most valuable agency sustained by the Church and of comparatively recent establishment is the Orphan Society, which already supports 2400 poor children deprived of one or both of their parents, and has an annual revenue of about £9000. SEE IRELAND.
8. PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF SECEDERS IN IRELAND. — This denomination of Christians was formed by a union, which was effected in 1818, between the two sections of the Secession Church in Ireland, the Burghers and Antiburghers. From the commencement of the present century negotiations had been carried on with a view to the accomplishment of this most desirable object; but such negotiations had uniformly failed, from the circumstance that the Antiburghers, who were subject to the general synod in Scotland, had been prevented by that court from taking effective steps in the matter. At length, however, they resolved to act independently of the Scottish judicatory, and the two synods of Seceders in Ireland, having agreed upon a basis of union, met at Cookstown July 9,1818, and formed themselves into one body under the designation of "The Presbyterian Synod of Ireland, distinguished by the name Seceders." The ministers of the united synod at this period amounted in number to 97. The basis on which the union rested consisted of the six following points:
"1. To declare their constant and inviolable attachment to their already approved and recognized standards; namely, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Directory for Worship, and Form of Presbyterian Church government, with the Original Secession Testimony.
"2. That, as they unite under the banner of a testimony, they are determined, in all times coming, as their forefathers have set them the example, to assert the truth when it is injured or opposed, and to condemn and testify against error and immorality whenever they may seem to prevail.
"3. To cancel the name of Burgher and Antiburgher forever, and to unite the two synods into one, to be known by the name 'The Presbyterian Synod of Ireland, distinguished by the name Seceders.'
"4. To declare their insubordination to any other ecclesiastical court, while, at the same time, they do hereby signify their hearty inclination to hold a correspondence with their sister Church in Scotland or elsewhere, for their mutual edification; but think it expedient not to lay themselves under any restrictions as to the manner of said correspondence.
"5. To allow all the presbyteries and congregations in their connection to bear the same name, and, in the meantime, stand as they were before the coalescence.
"6. Carefully to preserve all the public records of the two synods from their formation in this kingdom till the present day." This union was the means of imparting considerable strength and vigor to the Secession Church in Ireland. A home mission was now commenced, and the cause of Presbyterianism began to flourish in various towns and villages where it had been hitherto unknown. The whole proceedings of this Church were characterized by a high regard to purity of doctrine and the advancement of vital religion. The Irish Presbyterian Church, on the contrary, had long been hindered in its progress by the prevalence of Arian and Socinian doctrines, both among its ministers and people. By the divine blessing, however, they were at length enabled to rid themselves of the New-Light party; and, to secure uniformity of teaching in the Church, they passed an overture requiring absolute subscription to the Confession of Faith. The general synod was now, in almost all respects, assimilated to the Irish Secession Church, and the proposal of a union between the two was seriously entertained. An arrangement in regard to the regium donum made in 1838 paved the way for its completion, government having in that year agreed to equalize the bounty, and on certain conditions to grant £75, late Irish currency, per annum, to every minister connected with the two synods. Being thus placed on an equal footing by the government, and agreed both in doctrine and Church polity, the great obstacles to a complete incorporation of the two churches were thus removed.
The first movement towards union had taken place among the theological students of both churches attending the Belfast Academical Institution, who had established among themselves a united prayer-meeting. The desire for union, and a strong feeling of its propriety, rapidly spread both among ministers and people. Memorials on the subject, accordingly, were presented to the Synod of Ulster, and the Secession Synod, at their respective meetings in 1839. Committees were appointed by the two synods, and, the matter having been fully considered and preliminaries adjusted, the final act of incorporation took place at Belfast on July 10, 1840, the united body taking to itself the name of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. SEE IRELAND.
9. WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. — This body of believers is sometimes ranked among Presbyterians, because its form of Church government is a modified Presbyterianism. Each Church manages its own affairs, admits or expels members by the vote of the majority of those who belong to it, but this is rather Congregational than Presbyterian. It, however, allows an appeal from the decision of the individual Church to the monthly meeting of the county or presbytery to which it belongs, and then there is an appeal from the monthly meeting to the quarterly association of the province. Matters are finally disposed of as follows:
those relating to South Wales by the South Wales Association, and so of the North; but a few years ago a General Assembly of the whole connection was established, and the two associations may agree to refer matters to that body, which meets once a year, for final decision. Its Confession of Faith is, of course, strictly Calvinistic. SEE METHODISM (vol. 6:p. 156, col. 6).
10. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. — The denomination commonly known by this name, both on account of its numerical superiority and its priority of organization, derived its origin from the Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland, and particularly the latter, with a considerable infusion of French Huguenots, Dutch and German Reformed emigrants. Many fugitives from persecution in the mother country took refuge in the more liberal colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Francis Makemie, who may be called the founder of American Presbyterianism, was an Irishman, who several years before the close of the 17th century had gathered churches in Maryland. For several years before the organization of the first presbytery, his most intimate ministerial friend was Jedediah Andrews. The earliest traces of Church organizations of a trustworthy character indicate a congregation gathered in Upper Marlborough, Md. in 1690, and others collected by Mr. Makemie in the same colony about the same date, if not as early as 1684-one in Freehold, N. J., called the Scotch Meeting-house, in 1692; and one in Philadelphia, under the care of Mr. Andrews, in 1698. The Presbytery of Philadelphia is supposed to have been formed about the year '1705, if not before, this uncertainty arising from the first page of the manuscript minutes being lost. It was composed of seven ministers-Samuel Davis, John Hampton, Francis Makemie, and George M'Nish, from Ireland; Nathaniel Taylor and John Wilson, from Scotland; and Jedediah Andrews, from New England. The growth of the body was so rapid as to justify, in 1716, the formation of the Synod of Philadelphia, consisting of three presbyteries. The presbytery of Philadelphia had six ministers and six churches; that of Newcastle six ministers and churches; that of Snowhill three ministers and churches; and that of Long Island two ministers and several churches — in all twenty-three ministers and more than that number of congregations.
The Adopting Act was passed in 1729, designed to announce the Westminster Confession and Catechisms as the standards of the Church more formally than had ever yet been done. The bearing of this act has been of late years sharply discussed. It may be found in the printed minutes. It was a compromise measure accepted in consequence of the agitation which had been occasioned by the Irish presbyters. These had been in the midst of an exciting controversy against the intrusion of Arian principles into the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and had come over determined to suffer no looseness of subscription to the standards of faith. The Adopting Act occasioned, therefore, not a little controversy. The non- subscribers in sentiment disliked even the general terms of the Adopting Act, while the others desired the adoption of the ipsissima verba of the standards. Though the measure was finally a compromise, it failed to set differences at rest. They continued to develop, and became manifest in connection with certain synodical action on ministerial education, and ripened until they resulted in one or two secessions, which prepared the way for the establishment in this country of a branch of the Associate Presbyterian Church. In 1739, party feelings were revived by the visit of Whitefield, and the synod was divided into those who were known as friends or enemies of the revival. By 1741 the controversy resulted in a schism, by which the body was rent into two synods-that of the Old Side party, called the Synod of Philadelphia; that of the New, called the Synod of New York. The principal cause of the division was the insisting of the Old Side on a thoroughly educated ministry, while the New laid more stress on piety and zeal. There was no difference of opinion as to doctrine or discipline. Gilbert Tennant, the friend of Whitefield, was the leader and master spirit of the New branch, and published several sermons and pamphlets, very severe in their tone. After a separation of thirteen years, passion and party feeling cooled down, the leaders were disposed to make mutual concessions, past errors and mistakes were frankly confessed, and the two synods became again united, May 29, 1758, under the style and title of "the Synod of New York and Philadelphia," comprising ninety-four ministers. During the half century of existence that had now closed, the Church had taken some important steps. It had committed itself, for instance, to a polity distinctly Presbyterian, it had adopted Calvinistic doctrinal standards, and had set up a high standard of ministerial education. Nor were these things needless, or done too soon. A stream of population was rapidly flowing westward, having on its front line settlers of very diverse characters. Some were men of such lawless habits that they could no longer stay in orderly communities; others loved the wild excitements of frontier life, and others thought only of bettering their temporal condition by obtaining homes in the new lands. All classes were very poor. Indians were numerous, causing the preacher to carry his rifle as well as his Bible- while State Church opposition added to the difficulties of the Presbyterian evangelist. Only men of education-men of energy, fill of zeal and of varied resource, could have even held their own in the face of such hindrances. Such men the Presbyterian Church desired to have in its ministry, nor desired in vain. Many of its early preachers-the Tennants of New Jersey, Brainerd of the Indian Mission, Davies of Virginia, and a host of others, have been pre-eminent for ministerial efficiency, and will assuredly be held in everlasting remembrance. While the Church was thus supplying the Gospel in sparsely peopled districts and forming new presbyteries in every direction, it was led to enter into such relations with the Congregationalists as materially influenced its after-course. For some years before the Revolution, the Colonial Episcopal Church had sought to obtain a legal Establishment. Fearing the success of its efforts, the synod agreed in 1766 to meet in annual convention with the General Association of Connecticut, "to unite their endeavors and counsels for spreading the Gospel and preserving the religious liberties of the churches." This arrangement was carried out until the outbreak of I war in 1776 interrupted the intercourse.
When the war of the Revolution broke out, the Presbyterians, to a man, arrayed themselves on the side of the patriots-which may, at least in part, be explained by the fear, which they shared in common with the Congregationalists of New England, that there was a design to introduce bishops and establish an oppressive and odious hierarchy in the colonies. During the Revolutionary war, in common with all religious interests, the Presbyterian Church suffered greatly. Many of its church buildings were destroyed, and not a few congregations disorganized, yet its vitality remained unbroken. Rallying quickly on the return of peace new interest in religious ordinances was manifested by the people, and synodical meetings were better attended by the ministers.
In 1785, steps were taken for revising the standards of the Church and organizing a General Assembly. A committee consisting of Drs. Witherspoon, Rodgers, Robert Smith, Patrick Allison, Samuel Stanhope Smith, John Woodhull, Robert Cooper, James Latta, George Duffield, and Matthew Wilson, was appointed "to take into consideration the constitution of the Church of Scotland and other Protestant churches," and to form a complete system for the organization of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. In May, 1788, the synod convened and resolved itself into a General Assembly, which had its first meeting the following year, embracing four synods (New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, and the Carolinas), 17 presbyteries, 419 congregations, and 180 ministers. By this assembly the Westminster Confession of Faith was adopted with three slight alterations (in chapters 20:23:and 31), and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms with but a single alteration, while the form of government and discipline of the Scottish Church was so modified as to discountenance the right of the civil magistrate to interfere in the affairs of the Church except for the purpose of protection alone. Shortly after the war, the Presbyterian ministers renewed their friendly relations with the Congregationalists. In 1792 the General Assembly and the Association of Connecticut agreed that each denomination should be represented in the annual meetings of the other by three commissioners, an agreement that afterwards embraced the general associations of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. In 1794 these representatives were allowed to vote on all matters under discussion. All these measures prepared the way for the adoption, in 1801, by both parties of the "Plan of Union." Under this arrangement a congregation, Congregational in polity, might have installed as its pastor a Presbyterian minister who still retained his seat in the presbytery, and was personally responsible thereto, and be itself represented in that court not by an elder, but by a committeeman or delegate chosen from its membership. On the other hand, a congregation Presbyterian in its polity, connected with a presbytery and represented therein by an elder, might have installed over it as pastor a Congregational minister who remained a member of some Congregational association. This procedure was the fruit partly of the co-operations of the previous years, but it made Presbyterianism less systematic in its movements and less authoritative in its administration, as we shall see presently. During the earlier years of the present century, there appeared in the southern and western portions of the Church striking manifestations of religious interest, having, in many cases, singular physical accompaniments. In connection with these, zeal outran discretion; strange doctrines were soon taught; presbyterial order was violated, and confusion became widespread. Ultimately these things led to the withdrawal of some of the offenders and the removal of others from the Presbyterian Church, and the formation in 1811 of what is now known as "The Cumberland Presbyterian Church." (See No. 11 below.)
The increase of the Church was rapid, and by 1834 it contained 22 synods, 111 presbyteries, and about 1900 ministers. But only four years later (in 1838) Presbyterianism suddenly encountered a severe reverse by a widespread schism, for which the materials had been gathering for several years. In 1822, the Synod of the Associate Reformed Church having been brought, under the lead of Dr. John M. Mason, to favor union with the Presbyterian Church, that union took place; but a very considerable minority refused to acquiesce in the measure, and retained a separate existence. During the fifteen years that followed, the growth of the Church was unprecedentedly rapid. New churches and presbyteries were multiplied in the Middle and Western States, Already measures had been adopted (1812) which re suited in establishing Princeton Seminary, Union Seminary in Virginia, and, though unendowed, the Southern and Western at Marysville, Tenn. Auburn followed in 1816; the Western at Allegheny City and Lane at Cincinnati in 1726-27; Columbia, S. C., and Danville, Ky., in 1828; and Union at New York in 1836. The accessions from New England, at the time in full theological sympathy with the Presbyterian Church, were provided for by the "Plan of Union" agreed to by the General Association of Connecticut and the General Assembly in 1801. It aimed to secure the rights and the harmonious co-operation of two denominations entering the same field. For nearly a quarter of a century no fault was found with it; but it led to the representation in Presbytery and General Assembly of committeemen from Congregational churches, and these were found to favor voluntary missionary societies not under the Assembly's control. Of these societies, that for home missions, within a few years after its organization in 1826, had several hundred missionaries under its patronage. Most of these were from New England, and many of them were alike opposed to Church boards and in sympathy with "New Haven theology." Parties were thus formed in the Church, and the agitation on the subject of slavery, springing up at that time, tended to increase the alienation.
The crisis came in 1837. Two parties were arrayed against each other, known as the Old and New Schools. In general, it may perhaps be said that the division was one of sentiment between the more progressive and the more conservative members of the Church. In the Old there was more of a leaning to the strict views of the Scotch Church on doctrine and discipline; in the New, the preference was as decidedly in favor of the laxer and more latitudinarian practice of New England, from which region many of the party had originally come. The New Lights wished to bear a decided testimony against slavery; the Old Lights thought that duty did not require any action of the Church on that subject; the former wished to unite with other denominations in Christian work through voluntary societies; the latter believed that such work could be more efficiently and economically conducted by their denomination through boards which should be under its own control. Instead of brotherly love, bickerings and heart-burnings now prevailed; the General Assembly was an arena of constant strife; each party, as it obtained an accidental majority, set itself to work to nullify the measures of its opponents. The Old School made ineffectual attempts to try and condemn Drs. Barnes, Beecher, and Duffield for publishing heterodox opinions; the New School stood up for "substance of doctrine," and for the Great Voluntary or National Societies in opposition to denominational action. Confident in superior numbers and strategy, the latter anticipated an easy victory, and refused any concessions. The Old School, crippled on every side, and chagrined at being cast into the shade, held conventions to decide upon their future course. In 1834 appeared "The Act and Testimony," drafted by Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, complaining of the prevalence of doctrinal errors, the relaxation of discipline, and the violation of Church order. The signatures amounted to 2075. In 1837 another convention, meeting a week before the General Assembly, prepared a testimony and memorial to be laid before the Assembly, in which they testified against sixteen doctrinal errors, ten variations from Presbyterian order, and five declensions in Christian discipline, and proposed a method of reform. The Old-School party, finding themselves that year (the first for five years) in the majority, adopted the suggestions of the memorial as a basis of action, and pressed matters to a speedy issue. They established a Board of Foreign Missions, dissolved the Elective Affinity Presbytery, abrogated the Plan of Union of 1801 with the Congregational bodies, and disowned (or, as the New- School party termed it, exscinded) the four synods of Genesee, Geneva, Utica, and Western Reserve as un-Presbyterian in their composition. The next year (1838) both parties made strenuous exertions for the ascendency in the Assembly. Upon calling the roll, it was found that the delegates from the four synods were not recognized, nor would the moderator, Dr. Elliott, entertain any motion in their behalf. Hereupon, according to a concerted plan, the commissioners from the four synods and those who sympathized with them protested against the moderator's decision, and proceeded to make a new organization and elect new officers, after which they withdrew in a body to another place, and there held their sittings as the true Constitutional Assembly, and, among other things, elected several trustees of the property of the corporation. These trustees, being subsequently refused admission into the board, instituted legal proceedings, and received a verdict in their favor. The case being taken up to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, chief justice Gibson ordered a new trial. This, however, was never had, the rulings being such as to completely set aside the decision of judge Rogers in the inferior court, and after a few years the suit was withdrawn. The New School declared themselves satisfied with the moral effect of the trial, and with a later decision of the chief justice in the York case. The two bodies went on as separate denominations, though each claimed to have the genuine constitutional succession, and employed the same style and title, "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America." Both of these churches were extended over the whole of the United States, and both of them had missions in different parts of the heathen world, their collections for missions forming a large part of the contributions for that object from the United States of America. The Old-School Presbyterians possessed the following theological seminaries: Princeton (Princeton, N. J.), Western (Allegheny City, Pa.), Columbia (Columbia, S. C.), Danville (Danville, Ky.), and Northwest (Chicago, Ill.). The New- School Presbyterians held the Union (New York City), Auburn (Auburn, N.Y.), Lane (near Cincinnati, O.), Blackburn (Carlinville, Ill.), and Lind (Chicago, Ill.). The Old and New School Presbyterian churches were reunited in 1871. At that time the former comprised 2381 ministers, 2740 churches, and 258,903 communicants; and the latter, 1848 ministers, 1631 churches, and 172,560 communicants.
The theological history of the Old-School Presbyterian Church for the thirty-two years of its separate existence may be presented in a very few words. It was left by the separation in a state of almost unprecedented doctrinal homogeneity. One may well doubt whether any other Christian communion of equal size has ever excelled it as to unity in the reception of an evangelical creed of such extent as the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Differences of opinion, even among its ministers, have, of course, existed; but these differences were comparatively trifling, or of very little prominence or prevalence. If in any quarter serious error was adopted, for the most part it must have been kept secret, or have been known to but a few. No agitating discipline on this ground was exercised, or, to the knowledge of the Church at large, needed. "Princeton theology," as it has often been called, was, beyond question, almost universally prevalent among the Old-School Presbyterians. If opposing systems must take a modern nomenclature, there may be no harm in making Princeton and New Haven respectively the synonyms of the Old and the New Divinity; but it should be remembered that the text-books of Princeton have constantly been the simple Westminster symbols, and such long and generally approved systematic presentations of the reformed theology as the Institutio Theologic Eclenchticae of Franciscus Turretin. Old-School men have been slow to admit the idea of any possible improvement in the generally received system of Gospel truth. Recognizing fully the recent progress made in Biblical criticism and exegesis—the fact, too, that from time to time fuller and more exact statements of Christian doctrine may be, as they have been, elaborated—and by no means maintaining that any uninspired man has been wholly free from error, they have, nevertheless, rejected with singular unanimity the assumption that any part of the substance of the Gospel had lain hidden in Holy Scripture until modern times, or that the Church of Christ has new discoveries to make as to the system of truth in Jesus. A well-known Presbyterian quarterly publication- one identified with it from the beginning -has lately said, "It has been the honest endeavor of its conductors to exhibit and defend the doctrines of our standards, under the abiding conviction that they are the doctrines of the Word of God. They have advanced no new theories, and have never aimed at originality. Whether it be a ground of reproach or of approbation, it is believed to be true that an original idea in theology is not to be found on its pages from the beginning until now." And this praise or blame may be said to belong to the Old-School Church in general as distinctively as to the publication from which it has been quoted. The interval of separation was one of very marked literary activity in the Old-School body. Some thirty original volumes, from this source, of comment upon various portions of Holy Scripture appeared; and a very large number of important works, biographical, historical, dogmatical, practical, and miscellaneous. Probably no other denomination in the United States has produced within the same period so many theological books of standard value.
A deep conviction of the Church's duty to carry on, through strictly ecclesiastical agencies, the work of foreign missions, had led the Synod of Pittsburgh, as early as 1831, to organize itself for this purpose as the Western Foreign Missionary Society. The New School had refused to consummate the desires and plans of the Old, by taking this enterprise under the care of the whole Church; but the Assembly of 1837 accepted the trust, establishing in New York City the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. By the Assembly of 1838 a Board of Publication was appointed, to which were transferred the property and business of the Presbyterian Tract and Sabbath-school Book Society, organized by the Synod of Philadelphia a few years before. The Assembly of 1839, the fiftieth year having now been completed since this supreme judicatory had first convened, recommended the second Sabbath of December for a semi- centenary celebration, a day of jubilee and thanksgiving for past mercies, and the offering at that time, by all the members of the Church, of gifts for the endowment of the new board. The fund raised reached the sum of $40,000. This sum, with about $28,000 donated for building purposes a few years later, has been the nucleus of all that board's permanent property. Before the division, two boards had been organized the Board of Missions, now of Domestic Missions, for the home work, in 1816; and, in 1819, the Board of Education, to aid candidates for the ministry; both located in Philadelphia. These had been fostered by the Old School, while, as a party, the New School had preferred the American Home Missionary Society and the American Education Society, voluntary associations, in which Congregationalists participated. The Board of Missions had, in 1844, the business of church extension or church erection added to its other operations. This was carried on by a special committee, which, ten years afterwards, for greater effect, was enlarged. But in 1855 an independent committee of church extension was established at St. Louis, the name of which was changed, in 1860, to that of the Board of Church Building, then the Board of Church Extension. Two other departments of Christian liberality and effort have been committed to similar agencies. For more than a century and a half the Presbyterian Church has systematically raised funds for the relief of disabled ministers and their families. But in 1849 the General Assembly ordered collections for this purpose to be disbursed by the Board of Publication, a business transferred in 1852 to its own trustees; and in 1861 a secretary was appointed to devote his time mainly to this enterprise, which has since more prosperously advanced. In 1864, the condition of the freedmen at the South demanding immediate attention, two committees — one in Philadelphia, the other in Indianapolis- were appointed to take charge of educational and general evangelistic work among this class; and the next year, in place of the two, a single committee on freedmen was established and located at Pittsburgh. Various arrangements and changes have been made to secure to the boards the advantage of periodical publications to disseminate intelligence of their work through the churches. The latest accounts show a circulation of 16,000 copies of the Monthly Record; nearly 100,000 of the Sabbath-
School Visitor of the Month; and 3500 of the pamphlet, with almost 52,000 of the newspaper edition, both monthly, of the Foreign Missionary; besides many thousands of the several yearly reports and of various occasional issues. From about 1849 the project of a weekly religious paper, like the Methodist Advocate, was pressed upon the Assembly for several years successively, but without effect. Yet the Church has always acknowledged the unspeakable importance of religious papers, many of which have been established by private enterprise.
The several departments of self-development in the New-School section at the time of union were as follows:
(1.) "The Presbyterian Committee of Horne Missions." It steadily increased in efficiency. Its receipts the first year were $27,244, and the number of its missionaries 195. In 1889 it had 1592 missionaries and an income of $885,518. Its missionaries reported 160 new churches formed during the year; 12,000 hopeful conversions, and 10,490 added to the churches on profession of their faith. The freedmen's department, organized in 1865, received and expended during the year 1888 $113,082; and reported 375 teachers employed and 20 others under appointment, all in the Southern States.
(2.) The "Trustees of the Church Erection Fund", appointed in 1854 were incorporated by the Legislature of the State of New York in the year following. The original basis of their operations was the permanent fund of $100,000, raised by contributions from the churches, most of it in the year 1854, the interest to be employed in promoting the object chiefly in the way of loans. The establishment of this fund operated as a strong bond of union in the Church. In the year 1866 the basis was enlarged and an annual contribution and freer disbursements were ordered. Since that time this organization has been rapidly growing in importance, and now stands in the very first rank of the evangelizing agencies of the Church. In 1889 it reported an income of $125,202, and number of churches aided 185.
(3.) The "Permanent Committee on Education for the Ministry," organized in 1856, came slowly into operation, molding its plans gradually and embarrassed by the remains of the old voluntary system. In 1889 its income amounted to $155,843, and the number of its beneficiaries to 772-viz., 326 in the theological, 387 in the collegiate, and 59 in the preparatory department.
(4.) The "Committee on Doctrinal Tracts," organized in 1852, became the "Presbyterian Publication Committee." In 1889 its income from all sources was $337,787, of which $37,057 was expended in its purely benevolent work.
(5.) The "Trustees of the Presbyterian House," located in Philadelphia, and incorporated by the Legislature of Pennsylvania to care for a valuable property purchased chiefly by donations made by individuals in the city of Philadelphia, now estimated to be worth more than $100,000. Under their charge has been placed the Ministerial Relief Fund, managed by an executive committee which commenced its operations in 1864. In 1889 they reported $127,502 received from ordinary sources, and $595,734 as a special donation towards a permanent fund; also 223 disabled ministers, 341 widows, and 33 families of orphans aided. The average age of the ministers was 76 years, and the time of their ministry 40 years. The Assembly sustained also a Permanent Committee on Foreign Missions, whose functions were not the raising and distributing of funds or the conducting of missions, but the supervising of the work and reporting the results to the Assembly. From their report in 1889 it appears that contributions for that year to the American Board were, in money, about $709,735, and in laborers 71-viz. 52 male and 19 female missionaries. In 1867 the contributions were $110,725; in 1868, $110,602.
The beginning of a theological school for the education of ministers for the Germans, in which instruction is to be given both in German and English, has been made at Bloomfield, N. J., with encouraging success. The periodical literature of the New-School Church deserves honorable mention. Besides other local papers, the American Presbyterian, at Philadelphia, has shown a warm zeal for Church interests, and the New York evangelist has done excellent service. Much credit is due to the Presbyterian Reporter, a monthly published at Alton, Ill., for the ability and faithfulness with which it served the interests of the Church in the Northwest. During the ten critical years from 1852 to 1862, the Presbyterian Quarterly Review, ably conducted by an association of ministers in Philadelphia, defended the Church's cause and was an honor to Christian intelligence. The American Theological Review, founded in 1859 on a basis not distinctly denominational, united with the Presbyterian Review in 1863, combining the names and objects of both, under the charge of the late Prof. H. B. Smith. It was merged in the Princeton
Review, published since 1878 in New York City. The New Presbyterian Review was founded in 1890.
Prior to tile separation of the Church in 1838, a secession had taken place from it in Kentucky (1810), in consequence of a dispute between the Presbytery of Cumberland, in that state, and the Kentucky Synod of the Presbyterian Church in America, concerning the ordination of persons who had not passed through the usual educational curriculum, but whose services the Presbytery regarded as demanded for the ministry by the exigencies of the times. In doctrine this branch of the Church does not very materially differ from the New-School Presbyterian Church, but its symbols of faith are a modification of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It still exists as a separate organization. (See No. 11 below.)
In 1858 the New School experienced a defection of its Southern adherents. In 1857 the commissioners from the Southern section, who had attended the Assembly at Cleveland, O., proposed to withdraw and constitute the United Synod. This was organized at Knoxville, Tenn., April 2, 1858. In connection with the synod were over 100 ministers and about 200 churches, widely scattered over the Southern States. This body continued a separate organization until Aug. 24,1864, when it was merged in the General Assembly formed by Southern ministers and churches previously in the Old-School connection. In 1861 the Old School suffered a like defection by the outbreak of the civil war. The entire Southern body of Old-School Presbyterians, aggrieved by the Assembly's resolution on the state of the country, withdrew their connection and united to the organization of a "General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America," Dec. 4, 1861, at Augusta, Ga. The Second Assembly convened at Montgomery, Ala., May 1, 1862, since which time the meetings of the Assembly have been annually held contemporaneously with those of the Northern assemblies. In 1876 fraternal relations were sought for the first time between the two bodies. (See No. 17 below.)
Presbyterianism has never prevailed extensively in New England; but it has had such a distinct and independent existence there from a very early period that we speak of it here by itself. The French Church in Boston, formed of Huguenots about 1687, was the first Church organized on a Presbyterian basis, but was continued no longer than while its service was conducted in the French language. The first Presbyterian organization in New England of any permanence dates back to about the year 1718, when a large number of Presbyterians, with four ministers, emigrated to this country from the north of Ireland. For some time, in cases of difficulty, the ministers and elders were wont to assemble informally, and hold what might be called pro re nata meetings; and where they were unable to reach a satisfactory result, they sometimes asked advice of the Synod of Ireland. On April 16, 1745, the Rev. Messrs. John Morehead, of Boston; David M'Gregor, of Londonderry, N. H.; and Ralph Abercrombie, of Pelham, with Messrs. James M'Keen, Alexander Conkey, and James Hughes, met in Londonderry, and "constituted themselves into a presbytery, to act, as far as their present circumstances will permit them, according to the Word of God and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, agreeing to that perfect rule." The body was called the Boston Presbytery, and met, according to adjournment, in that town Aug. 13,1745. From the close of the year 1754 till October, 1770, there is a chasm in the records; but at the last-mentioned period the Presbytery consisted of twelve congregations and as many ministers. At a meeting held in Seabrook, N.H., on May 31, 1775, the Presbytery resolved to divide itself into three distinct bodies, viz., the presbyteries of Salem, of Londonderry, and of Palmer: these were then formed into the Synod of New England, which held its first meeting at Londonderry Sept. 4, 1776. At Boothbay, Me., on June 27, 1771, a new presbytery was erected called the Presbytery of the Eastward, consisting of three ministers and four ruling elders, representing four churches. It had no connection with the Boston Presbytery, and its origin is said to have been in some way connected with the removal of the Rev. John Murray to Boothbay. It never exhibited on its roll more than eight ministers. Its last recorded adjournment now known was to meet at New Boston, N. H., on the first Wednesday of October, 1792. The only relic of this presbytery known to exist is a curious volume printed in 1783, with the following title: Bath-Kol. A Voice from the Wilderness. Being an humble Attempt to support the sinking Truths of God against some of the principal Errors raging at this time. Or a joint Testimony to some of the Grand Articles of the Christian Religion, judiciously delivered to the Churches under their care. By the First Presbytery of the Eastward. In September, 1782, the Synod of New England, finding their numbers considerably reduced in consequence of existing difficulties, agreed to dissolve and form themselves into the Presbytery of Salem. For two succeeding years this Presbytery met regularly in Massachusetts proper, but after this its meetings were held in the district of Maine. Its last meeting was held at Gray Sept. 14, 1791. The Third Associate Reformed Presbytery, afterwards called the Associate Reformed Presbytery of Londonderry, was formed in Philadelphia Oct. 31, 1782, and held its first meeting at Londonderry on Feb. 11, 1783. It ceased to belong to its original denomination in 1802, and was thereafter an independent presbytery till 1809, when it was received into the Synod of Albany, and has since continued under the name of the Presbytery of Londonderry. The Presbytery of Newburyport was formed by the concurrent action of the Presbytery of Londonderry and the Synod of Albany. It held its first session in Boston on Oct. 27, 1826, and its last on Oct. 20, 1847, when it became reunited to the Presbytery of Londonderry. The Presbytery of Connecticut, consisting of several ministers and churches previously belonging to the Presbytery of New York, was constituted by the Synod of New York Oct. 15, 1850, and held its first meeting at Thompsonville, Oct. 29.
Missions. —
(a.) Home Missions. — The home mission work of the Presbyterian Church may date from the year 1707, when it was resolved "that every minister of the Presbytery supply neighboring destitute places where a minister is wanting and opportunity of doing good offers." Since that period this work has continued to be one of its most important enterprises. At the beginning in the hands of the presbyteries, the Assembly took charge of it in 1802, appointing a "Standing Committee of Missions," to which the presbyteries were to report. During the fourteen years that followed this appointment the Church sent out 311 missionaries, and collected $49,349. In 1816 this committee was changed into a board, "with full power to transact all the business of the missionary cause," reporting annually to the General Assembly. Under this arrangement the home missions of the Church entered on a new course of prosperity, congregations multiplying till presbyteries were formed, and these in turn growing into synods. So vigorous was the Church life now developed that even the great division of 1838 was unable to hinder its continuous activity. During these twenty-two years the board collected $231,504, and sent out 2486 missionaries, while during the years 1838 to 1870 the Old- School Church alone collected $2,805,375, and sent out 16,113 missionaries. For a few years after the division of 1838, the New-School Assembly continued to carry on its mission work through the American Home Missionary Society. In 1852 the Assembly appointed a "Church Extension Committee," following this up in 1862 by assuming "the responsibility of conducting the work of home missions within its bounds," forming "The Presbyterian Committee on Home Missions." During the years 1838 to 1869 the New-School Church is considered to have sent out 8800 missionaries. After the reunion, the agencies of both churches were united under the name I of "The Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church," by which, since that period, the whole home mission and church-extension work of the Church has been conducted, $1,840,997 having been collected and 6529 missionaries sent out, making a total since 1802 of $6,132,167 contributed for home missions and of 37,968 missionaries sent out. During the year 1875-76, 1035 ministers (or missionaries, as they are called) were aided to the extent, on an average, of $250 each.
Closely connected with this home mission is the Sustentation Scheme, organized in 1871 for the purpose of increasing the number of pastors in the Church, and of securing to these a larger measure of support. Under this plan, congregations paying not less than $700 a year of salary, and at the rate of $750 per member annually, and increasing their pastor's salary at the rate of $50 a year, receive grants-in-aid, so that the salary may be raised to $1000 a year.
(b.) Foreign Missions. — As early as 1742 the Church commenced her great work of preaching the Gospel to the heathen, in the ordination, by the Presbytery of New York, of a missionary to labor among the Indians. This work engrossed all her means and sympathies until 1817. In that year the General Assembly united with the Dutch Reformed and Associate Reformed Churches in forming "The United Foreign Missionary Society," a society whose object was "to spread the Gospel among the Indians of North America, the inhabitants of Mexico and South America, and in other portions of the heathen and anti-Christian world." In 1826 this society made over all its missions and property to the American Board, which thus became almost the National Foreign Mission Society of America. In 1831 the Synod of Pittsburgh formed itself into "The Western Foreign Missionary Society," and invited the co-operation and support of such as preferred Church action to that of so-called union societies. Before eighteen months had elapsed, twelve missionaries had been appointed to different fields of heathen labor. Ill the following year sixteen more were sent out, while $16,246 had been contributed towards their expenses. In 1837, mission stations in Northern India, West Africa, Smyrna, China, and among the Indian tribes of the West were under its charge, conducted by forty-four agents, for whose support $40,266 were contributed during that year. Such results strengthened the hands of those in the Church that desired denominational agencies. In 1837, therefore, the Assembly severed its connection with the American Board, and established its own "Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church," to which the Western Society at once transferred all its agencies and property. During the period of the division, the Old- School Assembly extended its foreign mission staff, forming, on heathen soil, synods and presbyteries by means of native converts. The New-School Church at first continued to send its contributions of men and money to the American Board, but in 1854 appointed a standing committee on missions, changing this in 1855 into a permanent committee, who should "superintend the whole course of foreign missions in behalf of the Assembly." On the reunion, in 1869, these agencies were brought together, while the reunited Church received from the American Board a number of mission stations that previously it had sustained.
SUMMARY VIEW OF THE FOREIGN MISSION OPERATIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The Presbyterian Church, from the earliest period, has been an earnest worker and strenuous advocate for education; and one of the chief causes of the secession of the Cumberland branch was the tenacity with which the General Assembly insisted on high educational qualifications for ministers. As early as 1739, a proposition was brought before the Synod of Philadelphia for the erection of a school or seminary of learning. The synod approved of the design and appointed a committee to carry it into effect, and in 1744 a synodal school was established. The College of New Jersey at Princeton. chartered in 1746 and opened in 1747, was founded under the auspices of the Synod of New York. Other institutions have been organized under Presbyterian auspices, as follows: Washington and Jefferson College (Washington, Pa., 1802), Hamilton College (Clinton, N. Y., 1815), Maryville College (Maryville, Tenn., 1819), Center College (Danville, Ky., 1823), Hanover College (Hanover, Ind., 1827), Lafayette College (Easton, Pa., 1831), Wabash College (Crawfordsville, Ind., 1832), Lincoln University (Oxford, Pa., 1853), University College (San Francisco, Cal., 1859), Blackburn University (Carlinville, ll., 1867), King College (Bristol, Tenn., 1868), University of Wooster (Wooster, Ohio, 1870), Evans University (Evans, Col., 1874), and Parsons College (Fairfield, la., 1875). Three colleges are jointly under Presbyterian and Congregational control: namely, Knox, at Galesburg, Ill., 1841; Beloit, at Beloit, Wis., 1847; and Olivet, at Olivet, Mich., 1828. The academies and ladies' colleges under the auspices of the denomination are numerous.
Not until 1812 did the Presbyterian Church make any provision for the theological education of persons seeking the ministry. In that year it organized its first theological seminary, locating it at Princeton, N. J., already well known for its college, which had been founded in 1746. Since then seminaries have been established in different parts of the country by presbyteries or by synods. Of these institutions the appointing the professors, the arranging the length of the curriculum, and the prescribing the course of study-the entire control, in fact-has remained in the hands of their founders. This state of things was so unsatisfactory and so unpresbyterian that, on the reunion in 1869, the directors of the different seminaries agreed that, while reserving to themselves the general control, the Assembly should in future have a veto power over the appointment of every professor, and should receive from the directors an annual report of their administration.
The Church has thirteen theological seminaries, as follows: at Princeton, N. J., 1812; at Auburn, N. Y., 1820; Western, Allegheny City. Pa., 1827; Lane, Cincinnati. O., 1832; Union, New York City, 1836; at Danville, Ky., 1853; Theological Seminary of the Northwest, Chicago, Ill., 1859; Blackburn University (theological department), 1867; at San Francisco, Cal., 1871; German, Bloomfield, N. J., 1869; German, Dubuque, Ia., 1870; Lincoln University (theological department), 1871; and Biddle Memorial Institute (theological department), Charlotte, N. C., 1867. Of these, the last two are for colored people, and the two immediately preceding them for Germans. In 1875-76 they had, in all, 56 professors and 578 students. The number graduating that year was 134. The board of education of the Church in 1876 received $72,040, and gave financial aid to 458 students (222 theological, 218 collegiate, and 18 academical). In the same year the Church maintained, for freedmen, 39 day schools, with 65 teachers and 3176 pupils and 5 higher schools, with 903 students, of whom 43 were preparing for the ministry. See Gillett, Hist. of the Presb. Church (2 vols. 12mo, rev. ed., Phila. 1875); Hodge, Constitutional Hist. of the Presb. Church (terminates in 1788; Phila. 1840-41, 2 vols.); Webster, Hist. of the Presb. Church till 1758 (Phila. 1857, 8vo); Presb. Reunion Memorial Volumae, 1837-71 (N. Y. 1871, 8vo); Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac;
Minutes of the General Assembly (ibid. 1877, new series, vol. 4); Blaikie, Sketch of the Presb. Churches throughout the World (Edinb. 1877), p. 38 sq.
11. CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. — In the beginning of the present century there was a very extensive revival of religion in the south-western part of Kentucky, within the bounds of the Presbytery of Transylvania. It is frequently called "the Great Western Revival of 1800," and is regarded by some as one of the most important religious movements in the history of the Protestant Church of the United States, as it firmly fixed the people of the valley of the Mississippi in the Christian faith. The supply of preachers being inadequate, the Presbytery appointed at different times a number of lay exhorters, and, after trial of their gifts, licensed some to preach. They did not require of them the usual course of classical studies, and permitted them to except to the doctrine of the divine decrees as involving the idea of Fatalism. In October, 1802, the Presbytery was divided, and the Presbytery of Cumberland was formed, covering the region just named. In April, 1803, the new Presbytery met, and ordained two of the licentiates— Finis Ewing (who had formerly been an elder) and Samuel King— and licensed other persons. In 1805, the synod, finding complaints laid before them of irregularity on the part of the Presbytery, appointed a commission of tell ministers and six elders, clothed with full synodical powers, to visit this remote region and investigate the whole matter. Accordingly the commission, when convened, summoned the Presbytery and the irregularly licensed or ordained persons, and endeavored to induce the latter to submit to an examination. This, with the sanction of the Presbytery, they refused; whereupon the commission prohibited them from preaching or administering ordinances in virtue of any authority derived from Cumberland Presbytery until they should submit. It was afterwards contended that, as the authority to preach had been originally conferred by the Presbytery of Transylvania, this prohibition was technically powerless in the case. It may also be observed that it seems now generally agreed by writers on both sides that the main objection was not to the illiterate character of the licentiates, but to their alleged unsoundness in doctrine. The Revival members (as they were called) of the Cumberland Presbytery after this met as a council and abstained from presbyterial acts. They memorialized the General Assembly, but in vain. The assembly sustained the synod, and exhorted the recusants to submit and act regularly. The synod, being directed to review their proceedings, complied, and on review confirmed all that had been done, and further dissolved the Cumberland Presbytery and re-annexed its members to the Presbytery of Transylvania. The council made an ineffectual effort to bring about a reconciliation, and offered to submit the licentiates to an examination; but as they required that all should be received in a body, the proposal was not accepted by the synod. On Feb. 4, 1810, Finis Ewing and Samuel King (ordained ministers, but silenced by the commission), and Samuel M'Adow, an aged minister, met and organized themselves into a presbytery under the name of the Cumberland Presbytery. In April following the Presbytery of Transylvania suspended Mr. M'Adow for his schismatical conduct.
The progress of the new body was rapid. In three years a synod was necessary, with 3 presbyteries and 60 congregations, and in 1829 a General Assembly was constituted. The statistics of 1859 reported in the connection 96 presbyteries, 927 ministers, 1188 churches, 82,158 communicants, and 24 educational institutions. In 1814 the synod published an edition of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, altered to suit their system, which is understood to be an attempt to steer between Calvinism and Arminianism. It rejects eternal reprobation, limited atonement, and special grace, teaching that the atonement was made for all mankind, and that the operation of the Spirit is coextensive with the atonement. Other points of Calvinism, as the necessity of the Spirit's work in regeneration and the perseverance of the saints, are retained. The Cumberland Presbyterians are warm advocates of revivals and camp- meetings.
As an evidence of the altered state of feeling towards this body of Christians as contrasted with the deliverance of the General Assembly of 1814-to the effect that they could be treated with not as a body, but only as individuals-it may be added that first the New-School General Assembly entered into correspondence with the Cumberland Presbyterian General Assembly, and in 1860 the Old-School Assembly also took this step. The Cumberland Presbyterians have increased very rapidly. The minutes of the forty-sixth General Assembly, 1876, show 26 synods, including nearly 125 presbyteries, extending over the territory between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, and reaching from the Appalachian Mountains, on the east, to the Pacific Ocean, on the west. The following statistical summary is approximately correct: Ministers, 1275; licentiates, 280; candidates, 220; congregations, 2000; elders, 6750; deacons, 2000; total communicants, 100,000; persons in the Sabbath-schools, 55,000; value of church property, $2.250,000; contributed during the year, $350,000. The following are the principal institutions of learning under the control of this Church: Cumberland College (Princeton, Ky., founded in 1829, discontinued in 1861), Cumberland University (Lebanon, Tenn., founded in 1842, which has the leading law-school in the South), Bethel College (M'Kenzie, Tenn., 1847), Waynesburg College (Waynesburg, Pa., 1850), M'Gee College (College Mound, Mo., 1853, now suspended), Lincoln University (Lincoln, Ill., 1866), Trinity University (Tehuacana. Texas, 1876), Cane Hill College, Boonsborough, Ark., 1852). The General Assembly, in 1876, approved the establishment of a Union Medical College, in connection with the three universities of the Church: namely, Cumberland, Lincoln, and Trinity. It is to be located at St. Louis, or some other large city. Waynesburg, Lincoln and Trinity admit young ladies on equal terms with young men. There are also several institutions exclusively for girls, owned by, or under the patronage of, the Church.
The Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church has been formed by the amicable separation of colored members from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and their organization into an independent body. The first number of their newspaper organ, The Ba3nner of Light, was published in September, 1876. It stated that the number of members of the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky was, in May, 1874, 3925; that the number of ministers at that time was seventeen; and that the value of church property was $12,550. Since that time the Presbytery of Missouri had added 240 members, and the same presbytery had raised $529.25 in 1874. Later reports than for 1874, had not been received from the other states.
12. THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD. — During "the persecuting times," some members of the Covenanting or Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland settled in Pennsylvania. In 1743 these met at Middle Octorara, and again solemnly subscribed the Old Scottish Covenant. In 1752 the Scottish Church sent the Rev. John Cuthbertson to be their minister. In 1774 he was joined by the Rev. Messrs. Linn and Dobbit, from the Reformed Presbytery of Ireland, when a Reformed Presbyterian Presbytery was formed. In 1782 these three ministers and a portion of the people joined with the Associate Church in forming "The Associate Reformed Church." The members who were opposed to this union kept together as praying societies until 1792, when the Scottish Church had appointed a committee of their number to take the oversight of them judicially. In 1798 a presbytery was organized at Philadelphia, and in 1800 the question of slavery forced itself upon the consideration of the newly organized "Reformed Presbytery of the United States of America," when it enacted that no slaveholder should be retained in its communion, a position since then faithfully maintained. In 1806 it issued a Testimony defining its position on several points not mentioned in the Westminster Confession. In the following year it undertook the theological education of its ministry by opening a seminary at Philadelphia, and in 1809 organized itself into "The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America," with three constituting presbyteries. Subsequent to the war of 1812 the relations of the Covenanting Church to the national government were much discussed. A variety of sentiments was apparent as to the extent to which the severance between the Church and that other ordinance of God-the State-should be carried. The result of these discussions was a rending of the Church in 1833, and the formation of an independent synod. The large losses which the synod-a representative, not delegated court-sustained in 1833 no ways disheartened it. More homogeneous than ever through the separation, it thenceforth proceeded rigidly to enforce the principles and practices that have at all times been accepted by the Church. Members of this Church therefore neither become nor act as American citizens: they neither vote at political elections, enlist in the army, accept of government situations, serve on juries, nor in any way identify themselves with the political system of the United States. In 1871 this Church, in accordance with its principle of the moral duty of religious covenanting, by its ministers and members entered into a solemn covenant with God and with each other to serve faithfully the great God and to keep his commandments, and to adhere to the Reformed Presbyterian principles and testimony. The theological seminary of the synod was organized in 1840, and is situated at Allegheny City, Pa., having at present a faculty of three professors.
Missions. — In 1856 the synod commenced a foreign mission at Latakiyeh, in Syria. Since then stations and schools have been opened in different localities. The missionary and benevolent contributions for the year 1876- 77 were as follows:
Foreign missions ... $8,522 Home Missions...... 3,068
Freedmen ................ 3,409 Education ...............2,565 Church election .....27,391 Total ....................$44,955
13. THE GENERAL SYNOD OF THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. — The minority of the Reformed Presbyterian Church at the disruption of 1833 is now known by this name. (See No. 12 above.) Steadily adhering to the other distinctive principles of the Covenanters, it yet allows its members to discharge the duties and enjoy the privileges of citizens, and is popularly known as the New-Light Covenanting Church. The theological seminary, organized in Philadelphia in 1809, adhered to this portion of the Church at the time of the separation, and is still in connection with it. Recently a number of its ministers and congregations have withdrawn from its fellowship, leaving the General Synod greatly enfeebled. SEE REFORMED PRESBYTERIANS.
14. UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERCA. — This body is composed of the Associate and the Associate Reformed churches which were united in 1858. We give here an outline of the history of each of these bodies up to the time of their union.
1. Associate Church. — This Church in the United States had its origin from a number of Scotch and Irish Covenanters exiled for conscience' sale to the American colonies, where they maintained worship in a distinct form to the best of their ability. In 1680 Lord Cardross took measures for the establishment of a colony in South Carolina, with a view to furnish a place of refuge to his persecuted brethren. This was formed at Port Royal; but, in consequence of an invasion by the Spaniards, the colony was abandoned inm 1688. Many, however, remained in Carolina, who were gathered into congregations under the care of a presbytery, which existed until about the close of the 18th century. The only one of these churches now remaining is the old Scots' Church in Charleston. From 1660 to 1688 a large number of Presbyterians (amounting, according to Wodrow, to about 3000) were transported to the American plantations and sold as slaves. 'hey were for the most part sent to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; but scarcely any traces of their history now remain. As early as 1736 those American Presbyterians who sympathized with the Scottish Seceders applied to them for a minister, but at that time none could be sent. The application was renewed in 1750, but the first minister sent to this country by the Secession Church of Scotland, the Rev. Alexander Gelatly, did not arrive until 1753. In 1753 a presbytery was organized under the name of "The Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, subordinate to the Associate Synod of Scotland." While heartily accepting the Westminster standards as their symbolical books, this Presbytery gave prominence to the distinctive doctrines of the Marrow divines. SEE MARROW CONTROVERSY. Its members held the Gospel offer to be a free grant and promise of Christ and his salvation to sinners of mankind as such — all having a common interest in him-faith to be a person's real persuasion that Jesus Christ is his-that he shall have life and salvation by Christ, and that whatever Christ did for the redemption of mankind he did for him. Stress was also laid on the doctrine of the binding obligation of the Scottish covenants-National and Solemn League. While the origin and doctrinal views of the Associate Presbytery restricted its sphere of labor, inside of that sphere it grew rapidly, congregations being formed in New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas. In 1776 a second presbytery, that of New York, was formed -like that of Pennsylvania, in subordination to the Scottish Synod. In 1764 the Rev. Thomas Clark, minister of Ballybay in Ireland, belonging to the Burgher Synod of Scotland, with the greater part of his congregation, emigrated to this country, and settled in Salem, Washington County, N. Y. Two other ministers of the same communion followed them two years after, though one of them subsequently returned to Scotland. The Burgher ministers, not being disposed to keep up a separate organization on this side of the Atlantic, united with their brethren; but the union was disturbed by the refusal of the Scottish synod to approve of it. The revolution of 1776 was chiefly instrumental in bringing about the existence of the Associate Reformed Church.
During the progress of the war several conventions were held between the members of the Associate and the Reformed presbyteries with a view to union. Their three presbyteries met in Philadelphia in October, 1782, and formed themselves into a synod, under the name of "The Associate Reformed Synod of North America," on a basis consisting of the following articles:
"1. That Jesus Christ died for the elect.
"2. That there is an appropriation in the nature of faith.
"3. That the Gospel is addressed indiscriminately to sinners of mankind.
"4. That the righteousness of Christ is the alone condition of the covenant of grace.
"5. That civil government originates with God the Creator, and not with Christ the Mediator.
"6. The administration of the kingdom of Providence is given into the hand of Jesus Christ the Mediator: and magistracy, the ordinance appointed by the moral Governor of the world to be the prop of civil order among men, as well as other things, is rendered subservient by the Mediator to the welfare of his spiritual kingdom, the Church, and has sanctified the use of it and of every common benefit, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"7. That the law of nature and the moral law revealed in the Scriptures are substantially the same, although the latter expresses the will of God more evidently and clearly than the former, and therefore magistrates among Christians ought to be regulated by the general directory of the Word as to the execution of their office.
"8. That the qualifications of justice, veracity, etc., required in the law of nature for the being of a magistrate, are also more explicitly revealed as necessary in the Holy Scriptures. But a religious test, any farther than an oath of fidelity, can never be essentially necessary for the being of a magistrate, except when the people make it a condition of government.
"9. That, both parties, when united, shall adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, the directory for worship, and propositions concerning Church government.
"10. That they shall claim the full exercise of Church discipline without depending upon foreign judicatories." On this basis all the members of the Reformed presbytery, and all the Associate ministers with the exception of two members of the presbytery of Pennsylvania, united. A small minority of the people in the two communions also declined to enter into it; and in these minorities have been preserved the Covenanter or Reformed Presbyterian denomination, on the one hand, and the Associate, on the other. (See No. 12 above.) From 1782, the period of the formation of the Associate Reformed Church, the Associate Church was gradually increased by ministers sent out from Scotland, and also by the return of a considerable part of those who had previously joined the union. In 1784 this Church put forth a Testimony intended to supplement the Westminster Confession, and containing special articles in favor of close communion, public covenanting, the exclusive use of the Psalms in praise, and against private oaths, that is, secret societies. The first institution for the purpose of educating students in theology by this body was established in 1793, under the care of the Rev. John Anderson, D.D., of Beaver County, Pa. The Presbytery of Pennsylvania, being unable to meet the applications for preaching which were made from Kentucky and Tennessee, directed the applicants to apply directly to the Synod of Scotland for missionaries. They did so; and Messrs. Armstrong and Andrew Fulton arrived in Kentucky in the spring of 1798, and in November formed the Presbytery of Kentucky. This accession of strength enabled these presbyteries to form themselves into a synod; and accordingly the synod, or court of review, designated as "The Associate Synod of North America" was constituted at Philadelphia in May, 1801. The synod consisted of seventeen ministers, who were divided into the presbyteries of Philadelphia, of Chartiers, of Kentucky, and of Cambridge. Until the year 1818 appeals might be taken from the synod to that of Scotland; but at that time it was declared a coordinate synod by the General Associate Synod of Scotland. Between the years 1838 and 1840 serious ecclesiastical difficulties arose, and several ministers were deposed or suspended. These, with a number of ministers and congregations in sympathy with them, at once organized separately, having several presbyteries, who constituted a synod and claimed to be the true Associate Synod. This painful division was afterwards adjusted, and a reunion was effected in 1854. To the Associate Church belongs the distinction of being one of the earliest churches on the American continent to take up a decided position on the subject of slavery. As early as the year 1800 the Presbytery of Pennsylvania issued a warning on the subject to the members of its churches, declaring slaveholding to be a moral evil and unjustifiable. This declaration was repeated in 1811, while in 1831 the synod judicially excluded slaveholders from its communion— an action which cost it all its congregations in the Southern States. The loss thus sustained was made up by the formation of new congregations and new presbyteries in Indiana, Illinois, and the far West. In 1858, previous to the union with the Associate Reformed Church, the Associate Synod comprised 21 presbyteries, 231 ministers and licentiates, 293 congregations and 23,505 communicants.
2. Associate Reformed Church. — The earliest settlements of the Associate Reformed Church were in Pennsylvania, within the Cumberland valley; but colonies from these emigrated to South Carolina and Georgia, New York, Kentucky, and even to New Hampshire and Maine. One of the first acts of the synod, after its organization in 1782, was the adoption of a series of articles, afterwards published under the name of The Constitution of the Associate Reformed Church; but these articles were severely attacked both by the Seceders and Covenanters, and were finally laid aside for a fuller exposition of the Church's faith. The result was that the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, after a careful revision at several successive meetings of synod, in the articles relating to the power of the magistrate, were published in a volume in 1799, entitled The Constitution and Standards of the Associate Reform Church in North America. In 1802 the synod organized itself into a general synod, with four subordinate synods New York, Pennsylvania, Scioto and the Carolinas. In 1804 the plan of the theological seminary was framed. Dr. John M. Mason was chosen professor of theology; and the sessions of the seminary began in the autumn of the same year in the city of New York. This was the second theological seminary established in the United States. Dr. Mason's work on Catholic Communion, published in 1816, was regarded as being in conflict with the Church's principles and practice; and this, in connection with some other grounds of complaint, led the entire synod of Scioto in 1820 to withdraw from the superintendence of the General Synod. In 1821 the Synod of the Carolinas petitioned the General Synod to be erected into an independent synod, on the ground that they were so distant from the place at which the General Synod usually assembled that it was impossible that they should be represented in it. The request was granted. For many years after that the Southern Synod gained but little in numbers, though in later years it became more prosperous; while the Scioto Synod rapidly extended itself and became more vigorous every year. About the time of the separation of this Western Synod, an unsuccessful attempt was made to unite the Associate Reformed and the Reformed Dutch churches, under the name of" The Reformed Protestant Church of North America." Immediately after this, that is, in 1821, a union was effected between the Associate Reformed and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; the consequence of which was that a portion of the former Church became incorporated with the latter, and the library of the Associate Reformed Church was immediately removed from New York to Princeton; though, as the result of a legal process, it ultimately fell back into the hands of its original owners. The act of union by the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church was irregular, being contrary to the express will of a majority of the presbyteries. However, many of the ministers and congregations who had remained under the care of the General Synod went into this union. The Synod of Pennsylvania with but few exceptions was merged in it, and that synod never met again. The Synod of New York, however, survived the dissolution of the General Synod, becoming separate and independent, like its two sister synods of the West and South. But its interests languished till 1829, when it resolved to revive the seminary, whose operations had been suspended in 1821, and to establish it at Newburgh, under the care of the Rev. Joseph M'Carroll, D.D., who was at the same time chosen professor of theology. An attempt was made in 1827 to revive the General Synod on the old footing, but it proved a failure. However, the Synod of the West, having divided into two, erected a General Synod, which first met in 1841, and under which a union was formed with the New York Synod in 1855. This united body numbered 4 synods, 28 presbyteries, 253 ministers and licentiates. 367 congregations, and 31,284 communicants. Its name then became "The General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church." They adhered to the Westminster standards as adopted in the Testimony of 1799, and held the doctrines of close communion, anti-slavery, and the exclusive use of the Psalms in praise.
In May, 1858, the Associate Reformed and the Associate churches, having been separated for more than three quarters of a century, were reunited upon a common basis, under the name of "The United Presbyterian Church in North America," a Church which is now the largest representative of those distinctive Views for which all the preceding churches have more or less contended. In addition therefore to its acceptance of the Westminster standards, which it modified, it has issued a Testimony whose adoption is a condition of communion both with ministers and members. In this Testimony are articles adverse to slavery and to secret societies, and in favor of close communion, the exclusive use of the Psalms, and of the moral duty of covenanting. A few years ago a new metrical version of the book of Psalms was adopted by this body. A small number protested against the union, and have since then continued under the name of" The Associate Synod of North America." (See No. 15 below.) In 1890, "The United Presbyterian Church of North America" embraced a General Assembly, 8 synods, 56 presbyteries, 753 ministers, 866 congregations, and 101,858 communicants. It has theological seminaries at Newburgh, N.Y.; Allegheny, Pa.; and Xenia, O.; and missionary seminaries at Osioot and Ramleh, Egypt. Westminster, Monmouth, and Ohio Central colleges are also under its charge. It has boards of Foreign Missions, of Home Missions, of Publication, of Church Extension, of Freedmen, and of Education, with mission stations in India, Egypt, and Syria. The Mission to China, which was instituted as a memorial of the "'union "of the different bodies in 1858, has been transferred to California. Its missionary contributions were, in 1876-77, for foreign, $77,126; home, $29,750. Its periodical publications are one monthly, one semimonthly, and two weekly newspapers.
The Associate Reformed Synod of the South has still its separate organization. Cordial in its relations with the United Presbyterian Church it has one missionary now laboring together with the missionaries of the latter Church in Egypt; and, slavery having ceased to be an object of contention, is now considering the propriety of organic union with that body. In 1875 a plan of co-operation was proposed between this Church and the United Presbyterian Church, North, which provides that '"the presbyteries of each Church shall sustain the same relation to those of tile other that they do to the co-ordinate courts of their own body, and that the ministers and licentiates of each shall be eligible to appointments and settlements in congregations of the other;" that the courts of each shall respect the discipline of the other; that ministers and members of the two bodies be recommended to cultivate friendly relations and Christian fellowship with each other; that the existing relations of the two churches (actual cooperation) in the work of foreign missions be continued; that a friendly co-operation of help and non-interference be practiced in the fields of home missions and Church extension; that the two bodies co-operate in building and sustaining the Normal or Training School of the United Presbyterian Church for the Freedmen, established at Knoxville, Tenn.; and that in the work of publication the Associate Reformed Synod co-operate with the Board of Publication of the United Presbyterian Church. These provisions were adopted by the synod. The committee on correspondence with the United Presbyterian Church was reappointed, but was instructed to take no direct steps towards union without further instruction. The Southern Church has a literary institution named Erskine College and a theological school, both at Due West, S. C. It numbers about 70 ministers, nearly one third of whom are in South Carolina, the rest in other Southern states.
15. THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD OF NORTH AMEMRICA is composed of some who declined to enter into the union with the Associate Reformed Synod in 1858 (see No. 14 above), and consists of the presbyteries of Iowa, Clarion, Muskingum, and Northern Indiana; and had, in 1876, 12 ministers, 2 licentiates, 34 congregational charges or stations, and 1115 communicants. The total contributions were $679.85.
16. THE UNITED SYNOD OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SOUTH. — In 1857 the New-School Presbytery of Lexington affirmed slavery to be right and scriptural in principle. The Assembly (1857) replied by condemning the position, and refused to allow either the principle or the practice. The delegates from the Southern churches protested, and, declaring this action to be an "indirect excision" of their congregations, withdrew, and in 1858, at Knoxville, Tenn., organized themselves as "The United Synod of the Presbyterian Church, South," consisting of some 100 ministers and about 200 congregations. A proposal for union with the Old School Presbyterian Church was declined by this latter body because coupled with the condition that the Assembly set aside its doctrinal decisions of 1838. In 1859 the United Synod reported 14 presbyteries, 118 ministers, 187 churches, and 12,125 communicants, of whom 323 were colored. In 1864 the synod joined the Presbyterian Church, South.
17. THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SOUTH, dates its organization from Dec. 4, 1861, when the commissioners from all the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church within the Confederate States met in Augusta, Ga., and organized as a General Assembly. The style and title then chosen was, The Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America; but after the overthrow of the Confederacy the word united was substituted for Confederate, and of America was dropped. The Presbyterian Church, South, disavows all connection with political matters, and holds to strictly ecclesiastical labor. In 1876, at the Assembly held in Savannah, Ga., when the appointment of delegates to the Pan-Presbyterian Council of Edinburgh in 1877 was considered, all expressions used in the different courts during the exciting times of the civil strife were rescinded as inconsistent with the platform of 1862. The report then adopted closed with the following declarations:
"1. We solemnly reaffirm the explicit and formal statement set forth at the time of the organization of our General Assembly in 1861, in an 'Address to the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth.' This document clearly and forcibly details our position concerning the nature and functions of the Church as a spiritual body, and, therefore, 'non-secular and 1non-political.'
"2. Inasmuch as some incidental expressions, uttered in times of great public excitement, are found upon our records, and have been pointed out in the report of the committee aforesaid, which seem to be ambiguous or inconsistent with the above declarations and others of like import, this Assembly does hereby disavow them wherever found, and does not recognize such as forming any part of the well - considered, authoritative teachings or testimony of our Church." At that time this Church consisted of 12 synods, 62 presbyteries, 1821 churches, 1079 ministers, and 112,183 communicants. Their contributions amounted to $1.138,681. The Assembly conducts its benevolent operations through three general committees (the work of foreign missions and of sustentation being united under the same committee), viz. the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions and Sustentation, of Education, and of Publication. Foreign missions are maintained in the Indian Territory, Mexico, South America, Greece, Italy, India, and China, and domestic missions in new and destitute localities in the South, at an annual cost of $71,121, supporting 75 missionaries in foreign fields, of whom 26 are ordained ministers, 4 licentiates, and 21 assistant missionaries, all from the United States; 9 ordained ministers and 25 assistant missionaries are natives of the countries in which they labor. With these foreign missions are connected 22 churches, with 1200 communicants; also 13 training schools of various grades, containing 250 pupils. The Sustentation Board extends aid to the amount of $20,000 in support of their ministers to 185 churches in 57 presbyteries; $6000 to the support of evangelistic labor, and $10,000 to relieve disabled ministers and families of deceased ministers. A publishing house is maintained at Richmond, Va., and, with a capital of about $40,000, issues Presbyterian books for ministers and congregational and Sunday school libraries. It also aids in the education for the ministry of young men of limited means, and in the publication and dissemination of a religious and doctrinal literature.
In all educational work, this branch of the Presbyterian Church has always held very advanced ground. It declares in its constitution that "because it is highly reproachful to religion, and dangerous to the Church, to entrust the holy ministry to weak and ignorant men, the Presbytery shall try each candidate as to his knowledge of the Latin language and the original languages in which the Holy Scriptures were written. They shall also examine him in the arts and sciences." The first written test required of the candidate is "a Latin exegesis on some common head in divinity." The common requirement in its presbyteries is equal to the curriculum in most American colleges. The demands of the Church for the education of its ministry and its own youth have everywhere made it the patroness of learning and engaged it in the founding of institutions for higher education. It has been the pioneer of education in nearly all the older Southern communities. During the civil war, many of the institutions of learning founded and endowed by the Presbyterian Church in the South perished by the loss of endowments in the general financial wreck. Among them were Oglethorpe University, Ga.; Oakland College, Miss.; La Grange College, Tenn.; and other valuable institutions of less prominence. Center College, Ky., was lost through decisions of the United States courts in favor of a minority adhering to the old Assembly. Others were suspended by the enlistment of the students in the armies, and were crippled by the partial loss of endowments. The following, founded and endowed by Presbyterians, survived the disasters of the war, and now, under Presbyterian control or auspices, are rendering valuable service to the country: Hampden Sidney College, Va.; Davidson College, N.C.; Stewart College, Tenn.; Westminster College, Mo.; King College, Tenn.; and Austin College, Texas. Central University, at Richmond, Ky., has been founded and successfully opened since the war. The synods of Nashville, Memphis, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, conjointly, have also projected a university (the South-western) to be strictly under Presbyterian control, for which they are now soliciting an endowment. It has been located at Clarkesville. Tenn. Stewart College has been merged in it. The financial prostration of the South since the war has rendered the endowment of its institutions of learning slow and difficult. Of academies and schools competent to prepare boys for college or young men for the university, or to give a good mathematical and classical education, thorough so far as it goes, to those whose means do not admit of more elaborate courses, there is a great insufficiency throughout the South. Those which had previously acquired success and reputation were generally broken up through the disastrous effects of the war, and the poverty and depression of the people have operated to the discouragement of efforts to establish others. Of such institutions there are some of a high character, maintained under Presbyterian auspices; as the Bingham School, Mebanesville, N. C.; Pleasant Ridge Academy, Green County, Ala.; Edgar Institute, Paris, Ky.; Military and Classical Institute, Danville, Ky.; Finlay High School, Lenoir, N. C.; and Kemper Institute, Booneville, Mo. The Southern Presbyterian Church has two theological seminaries, each endowed and furnished with buildings, libraries, and four professors of eminent ability and learning -Union Seminary, at Hampden Sidney, Va.; and Columbia Seminary, at Columbia, S. C. It has recently established a third, at Tuscaloosa, Ala., for the education and training of colored men for the ministry; and for this it is now gathering an endowment. There are no Presbyterian schools or colleges for girls in the South endowed beyond the provision of buildings, apparatus, and libraries; but there are many institutions under Presbyterian control or auspices in which every reasonable comfort is combined with advantages for the thorough education and accomplishment of girls. Among these are many colleges, collegiate institutes, and seminaries which afford a high grade of instruction to young ladies, and are widely esteemed for general excellence and efficiency.
The work of education for the ministry is conducted by the General Assembly, through an executive committee located at Memphis, Tenn. In the last ecclesiastical year, the committee received from the churches, for this purpose, $15,131, from which 95 young men, prosecuting their studies at various colleges and theological seminaries, received assistance.
The standards of the Southern Presbyterian Church are the Westminster Confession (with the chapter "Of the Civil Magistrate" amended), the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Westminster Form of Government and Directory, somewhat altered to suit the circumstances of the Church, with "Rules of Discipline," or "Forms of Process," gathered from the usages and laws of the Scottish Church. These standards are adopted by every minister at his ordination, in answer to the questions put to him publicly by the presiding minister, but are not required to be adopted by subscription to any written formula.
Anterior to the division of the Church into Northern and Southern churches, the Southern churches were disposed to adhere more closely to the standards, and were more churchly in their ideas, after the fashion of the Westminster Era, than a large portion of the Northern churches, who came nearer the Congregational influence of New England. It was the united opposition of the Southern churches to what claimed to be a more liberal Presbyterianism which in large part caused the division of 1837 into Old and New School bodies. Since the separation in 1861, the Southern body has grown even more strict in its views of the standards, and the jure divilo character of Church government. But, with all their zeal for a strict construction of the standards of doctrine and order, the Southern churches have ever been distinguished for their interest in protracted meetings and services of religion. The custom is almost universal of holding protracted services of several days or weeks duration in the churches at one or more communion services in the year, as the indication of the special presence of the Holy Spirit may suggest; and most frequently at such meetings there is a revival in the hearts of God's people, and awakenings of greater or less extent among the unconverted. The special labors of evangelists such as Moody and Sankey, and Whittle and Bliss, have not been enjoyed to any great extent in the Southern churches. It is an opinion generally accepted among the Southern ministry that there is great advantage, especially in a sparsely populated region but partially supplied with the means of grace, in bringing the Gospel to bear for successive days upon the minds of men. In this way their thoughts can be more effectually withdrawn from their worldly connections and pleasures, and fixed more intently upon the great matter of salvation. Hence the evangelists found that neither their methods nor their preaching of the Gospel of salvation by grace only, through faith, was much of a novelty to the Southern Presbyterian churches.
It has proved to be a great drawback to the proper influence of the Southern Presbyterian Church that, owing partly to its poverty, partly from lying out of the chief lines of the travel and commerce with Europe, and partly from lack of great commercial cities with their accumulated capital, its learned men are able to publish very little, and its journals are of necessity provincial in their character, and therefore the world at large knows little of them. Besides, so vast is the territory covered by this Church, and so diverse the local interests, that instead of patronage being concentrated upon one or two great religious journals, it is divided between some seven or eight, none of which has power enough to make itself felt abroad. The Southern Presbyterian Review, a quarterly journal of thirty years' standing, now published under the supervision of the professors in the two theological seminaries, compares most favorably in learning and ability with any theological quarterly in this country; yet, being published in the interior of South Carolina, without the aid of the machinery of a great publishing-house to bring it before the world, it is little known outside the circle of its local patrons and admirers.
In view of the calamities which have befallen this body of Presbyterians during the sixteen years of its history, bringing poverty and distress upon so large a part of its people, its success, so far, has been remarkable. In view of the vast territory to be evangelized which is covered by it, and the hundreds of thousands of poor ignorant Negroes, ever tending backward to heathenism, who must depend upon this Church very largely for a form of the Gospel that will enlighten and civilize them, no body of Presbyterians in the world has a greater work to do, or, in proportion to the work to be done, less financial ability to sustain it.
18. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA. — In this British dominion the Presbyterians are in point of numbers the third among the religious denominations, being only exceeded by the Roman Catholics and the Church of England. Presbyterianism dates in Canada at least from the conquest, in 1759. Its first exponent is supposed to have been the Rev. George Henry. He appeared in Quebec as early as 1765, and was the chaplain of a British regiment stationed there. In 1784 the Rev. Alexander Spark went there, and in 1787 the first Presbyterian congregation was organized. It was composed principally of soldiers. In 1780 the Rev. Thomas Bethune, a minister of the Kirk who had come from Scotland as chaplain of a Highland regiment, preached first in Montreal, and afterwards organized several congregations in the county of Glengary. In Montreal itself, the first Presbyterian Church was organized in 1790. They built St. Gabriel Street Church, which is still used as a Presbyterian church, and is the oldest Protestant church in Canada. Previous to the completion of their own structure they worshipped, by permission of the Recollet Fathers, in a Roman Catholic Church. In recognition of these kind offices. "The Society of Presbyterians," as they were then called, presented the good fathers with "two hogsheads of Spanish wine and a box of candles," which were "thankfully accepted" — a manifestation of friendly feeling between Romanists and Protestants which continues to this day. In 1803 the first Presbytery of Montreal was organized by two ministers and one elder; and for years after the development of Presbyterianism was slow. In Upper Canada, now known as the Province of Ontario, the pioneers of Presbyterianism were sent out by the Reformed Dutch Church. One of the principal laborers thus sent was the Rev. Robert M'Dowell, who was appointed by the classis of Albany as their missionary to Canada in 1798. He itinerated throughout the greater part of Upper Canada, forming and fostering congregations in various places. He (died at a very advanced age in 1841. The Rev. W. Smart, who was sent out from England in 1811, and who labored long and faithfully in Brockville; the Rev. W. Bell, sent out from Scotland in 1817; the Rev. William Jenkins, originally from Scotland, who went to Canada from the United States in 1817; the Rev. Robert Boyd, from the Synod of Ulster, ordained in 1821; and the Rev. James Harris, also from Ireland, who began his labors in 1820 as pastor of the first Presbyterian church in York (now Toronto), were among the founders of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. To Kingston and a few other places ministers were, on application, sent out by presbyteries in Scotland, the Rev. John Barclay being the first minister of Kingston. In 1825, the Glasgow Colonial Society was formed, which sent out many ministers to Lower and Upper Canada, as well as to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These ministers were all of the Church of Scotland. In 1827 bishop Strachan, of Toronto, published an ecclesiastical chart of Upper Canada, in which the Church of England was said to have thirty ministers, while two only belonged to the Church of Scotland-" one of whom," it was further alleged, "had made application to be received into the Anglican Communion." A change, however, was at hand. The tide of immigration had begun to flow in the direction of Canada, bringing large numbers of Presbyterians from Scotland and the north of Ireland. Societies also began to be formed in Scotland "for promoting the religious interests of Scottish settlers in British North America." Presbyterianism had taken root in Canada; it now began to make rapid progress. The supply of Scottish ministers being necessarily cut off, owing to the ecclesiastical condition of the country, these provinces were at this time thrown almost entirely on their own resources. In 1831 was formed "The Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland." On its first roll were 25 ministers. "The United Synod of Upper Canada," consisting chiefly of ministers of the Associate Church of Scotland, with some from Ireland, had formed about 1819, but in 1840 was amalgamated with the synod in connection with the Church of Scotland, and then numbered 82 ministers. Several ministers from the Secession Church of Scotland came to Canada about 1832, and the number was increased from time to time. They were organized as the Missionary Synod of the United Secession Church, and known afterwards as the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada. In 1844, the year after the disruption of the Church of Scotland, a division took place in the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland; 25 ministers agreeing with the Free Church of Scotland withdrew, and formed themselves into 'The Presbyterian Church of Scotland." The synod formed immediately founded a theological hall at Toronto under the name of "Knox College." The United Presbyterians also instituted a theological hall at London. The synod in connection with the Church of Scotland, having in 1841 obtained a royal charter for Queen's University and College at Kingston, set themselves to work for its better equipment. Then began a struggle for pre- eminence between three vigorous branches of the Church. With varying success, each maintained a separate existence for seventeen years. To Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the first Presbyterian ministers were sent from Scotland by the Burgher and Antiburgher synods. A missionary was also sent in 1768 by the united synods of New York and Philadelphia. About 1769 the real work of building up a Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia may be said to have begun the Rev. David Smith and the Rev. Daniel Cock having been sent out by the Burgher or Associate Synod of Scotland. Seventeen years afterwards, the Rev. James M'Gregor was sent out by the Antiburgher or General Associate Synod. From these beginnings grew up the Presbytery of Truro (Burgher), established in 1786, and the Presbytery of Pictou (Anti-Burgher), in 1795. In 1817 these united, forming "The Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia." This was the first colonial union of which there is any record. Ministers from the Church of Scotland came at a later date. This Church Was first represented in these provinces by the Rev. Samuel Russel, called to be minister of St. Matthew's Church, Halifax, in 1784. But thirty-two years intervened before it could be said to have effected a permanent lodgment. In 1833 seven ministers of the Church of Scotland formed themselves into the Synod of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island (the Presbytery of New Brunswick, however, declined to enter into the compact, and in 1835 constituted itself the Synod of New Brunswick). The Synod of Nova Scotia grew apace, and when the division came, in 1844, it had outnumbered its elder sister. But now it was well-nigh extinguished. Some of its ministers returned to Scotland, others joined the Free Church in these provinces. Three only maintained their former connection. The synod became defunct in 1843, and was not resuscitated till 1854, when it again put forth energetic efforts to recover its lost ground. In Canada the new body, founded in 1844, in sympathy with the Free Church of Scotland, took, as we have said, the name of "The Presbyterian Church of Canada." In 1861, after several years spent in negotiations, this body and the United Presbyterian Church in Canada united under the designation of "The Canada Presbyterian Church," the corresponding bodies in the Lower Provinces uniting under the name of "The Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces." "The Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church" entered on a prosperous career, with a roll of 226 ministers, of whom 128 had belonged to the Canada Presbyterian Church and 68 to the United Presbyterian Church. In 1870 the supreme court of this Church was for the first time constituted as a General Assembly. In 1868 the synods of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in connection with the Church of Scotland were united into one synod. The synods of the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church had already united, namely, in 1860. Thus the way was prepared throughout the Dominion of Canada for comprehensive union. In September, 1874, there were (omitting a few congregations connected with organizations in the United States) four Presbyterian bodies in the Dominion of Canada, viz.: the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland; the Canada Presbyterian Church; the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and adjoining provinces; and the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces. In the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland there were 11 presbyteries and 122 ministers; in the Canada Presbyterian Church, 19 presbyteries and 329 ministers; in the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia, etc., 6 presbyteries and 31 ministers; and in the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, 10 presbyteries and 124 ministers. There were theological colleges in Toronto and Montreal belonging to the Canada Presbyterian Church; at Kingston and Quebec, to the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland; and at Halifax, to the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces. Nearly one half of the ministers in the several provinces have been supplied by the theological colleges of the country. From the date of the union above referred to, overtures having reference to a yet more comprehensive union began to engage the attention of the supreme courts of all the churches in British North America. Increased facilities for intercommunication helped to make the proposal at least possible of accomplishment. The confederation of the provinces which now form the Dominion of Canada having been consummated in 1867, there naturally followed a strong desire for that ecclesiastical union which had long been contemplated. This desire was shared by many who had previously opposed such a union. Formal negotiations were commenced in 1870 in all the provinces, culminating in the union which was happily consummated June 15, 1875, in the city of Montreal, when the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, the Canada Presbyterian Church, the Church of the Maritime Provinces in connection with the Church of Scotland, and the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, declaring their belief that it would be for the glory of God and the advancement of the cause of Christ that they should unite, and thus form one Presbyterian Church in the Dominion, were formally united under the name of "The Presbyterian Church in Canada." The aggregate of the United Church at that date was 634 ministers, 1119 congregations, 90,658 communicants, and a population under its instruction of about 650,000. Statistics of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as they were reported to the General Assembly in June. 1876, then showed it to contain 4 synods, 33 presbyteries, 1076 congregations, 664 ministers, 82,186 communicants, and 59,949 Sabbath scholars. The contributions for all purposes amounted to $939,690; of this sum $418,058 were paid for the support of the ministry, $25,472 for home mission work, $16,173 for foreign missions, and $11,219 for missions among the French Canadians.
1. The home missions of the Church are co-extensive with this vast dominion. Their history is simply the history of the Church itself-one of continuous, steady progress. In the early years of Presbyterianism in Canada, owing chiefly to the lack of ministers, many cast in their lot with those branches of the Church whose missionaries first supplied them with the means of grace. Others, filled with romantic attachment to the Church of their fathers, waited long and patiently, and instances are not wanting of "vacant congregations" assembling themselves for public worship for years together to hear sermons read by one of their elders, or to be exhorted by "the men" whom they recognized as their temporary leaders. The work divides itself into two distinct departments: 1, the opening up of new fields, and supplying ordinances to purely mission stations; 2, to aid weak congregations in the support of their ministers. The number of purely mission fields occupied in the western section in 1876 was 130, including 300 preaching-stations, with 3000 communicants. The average Sabbath attendance at these stations was about 16,000 in the aggregate. There were also 78 supplemented congregations with settled pastors receiving grants from $50 to $300 each per annum from the home mission fund. The number of missionaries employed was as follows: 35 ministers and licentiates; 59 theological students; 44 catechists; 12 lay catechists — in all 150 missionaries. The grants made for 1877 to home mission fields amounted to about $20,000, to supplemented congregations $10,000, and for contingencies $2500, making in all $32,500. The eastern sections, although small in comparison with the immense territory assigned to the Western Committee, have a mission field which is neither very limited, very compact, nor very easily wrought. It embraces some nine or ten groups of stations requiring missionary services. The greater part of the work is done by student catechists, of whom many were employed in 1877. In addition to these, eight Gaelic catechists are employed in Cape Breton, and other parts of Nova Scotia. An interesting mission field was recently entered upon in New Brunswick. It is known as "The New Kincardine Colony," and is described as "a little bit of Scotland transplanted bodily into the forests of New Brunswick." Another has been opened in a long-neglected part of Newfoundland. "The annual expenditure for home missions in this section is about $3500, and for supplementing the stipends of ministers in weak congregations about $4000.
In addition to the work above mentioned, missions of a special character are maintained. Of such is the mission to the lumbermen, instituted seven years prior to the union by the branch of the Church in connection with the Church of Scotland. The object of this mission is to supply the ordinances of religion to the large number of men employed in the forests during the winter. These are visited by ministers, and supplied with copies of the Scriptures, tracts, and other literature in French and English. The average number annually employed in this branch of industry, in the valley of the Upper Ottawa, is about 5000 men. The amount expended on their behalf is about $650 per annum.
Perhaps in no department of Church work are there more hopeful and encouraging signs of progress than in that under the care of the Assembly's Board of French Evangelization, which has for its Herculean task the emancipation of 1,250,000 French Roman Catholics. Previous to 1875 missionary efforts in this direction had been conducted on a limited scale by the several churches. Since the union a great impetus has been given to the work, which is now assuming large proportions. In the service of the board there are at present forty missionaries, colporteurs, and teachers. several of whom were at one time priests of the Church of Rome. In Nova Scotia an ordained missionary labors in a wide field with a fair measure of success.
He reports 125 Romanists having embraced Protestantism through his instrumentality during the year 1876. In the province of New Brunswick there are three French missions, each making steady progress. In the province of Quebec there are twelve rural missions, maintaining Sabbath schools, besides the ordinary services. In Ottawa, the capital of the Dominion, the board employs two missionaries, who minister to about 250 persons. In Quebec city-the stronghold of popery in Canada-a church was erected in 1876, the first French Protestant church built in the city.
2. The staff of foreign missionaries consists at present of ten ordained ministers, one catechist, who acts as superintendent of schools, and three female missionaries. These are assisted by a large number of trained native teachers. The salaries of the ordained missionaries average about $1200 each; their assistants receive from $400 to $600 each per annum. The Church contributes annually towards the expenditure, in connection with the mission-ship Day-spring, $1200. The fields are four in number:
(1.) The New Hebrides. — This is the oldest and most distant. It originated with the late Dr. John Geddie, formerly a minister of the United Presbyterian Branch of the Church at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, who landed on the island of Aneityum on July 13, 1848. This is no place to enter upon the details of Dr. Geddie's life's work. Few missionaries have been more successful, and no higher encomium need be associated with his name than these touching words inscribed on a tablet recently erected to his memory on the wall of the chapel where he was wont to preach: "When he came here there were no Christians, and when he went away there were no heathens." Since the commencement of this mission twelve missionaries, with their wives, have gone from Nova Scotia to labor in this field.
(2.) Trinidad. — The mission to the Coolies of Trinidad was begun in 1869 by the Revelation John Morton, also a minister of the Church of the Lower Provinces. In 1871 he was joined by the Rev. R. J. Grant, and more recently by the Rev. Thomas Christie. Fifteen schools have been opened. Churches have also been built, and a number of native assistants take part in the work, which, notwithstanding many difficulties, is making satisfactory progress. The number of Coolie children under instruction is 500, and the missionary reports that 15 in one school can repeat the whole of the Shorter Catechism. The number of Coolies on the island is about 15,000.
(3.) Formosa. — This is one of the Church's most promising foreign mission fields. It was begun in 1872 by the Rev. G. L. M'Kay, of the Canada Presbyterian Church. In 1875 he was joined by the Rev. J. B. Fraser, M.D., as a medical missionary. In these five years there have been erected ten chapels and two mission houses. Five hundred of the natives have renounced idolatry, and regularly attend Christian services. Seventy- five have, after careful preparation and examination, been admitted as communicants. There are five schools with native teachers, and nine native students are under training for missionary work.
(4.) India. — Previous to the union the Canada Presbyterian Church and the Church in the Maritime Provinces in connection with the Church of Scotland had each broken ground in India by sending female missionaries. In 1874 the Rev. J. F. Campbell, a minister of the last-named Church, offered himself for foreign mission work. He has since proceeded to Madras as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. At the same time the Rev. James Douglas also accepted an appointment to labor at Indore.
Next to the New Hebrides, the Juvenile Mission to India, instituted by the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, is the oldest foreign mission of the Church. It was originated twenty-five years ago, and has always been supported by a number of Sabbath-schools and the voluntary offerings of a few friends. The annual contributions received by the treasurer have been steadily increasing for some years. Besides supporting four Zenana day schools and a Bible-woman, this juvenile agency provides for the education of about forty orphan children in India.
3. Colleges. — Queen's University and College at Kingston, founded in 1840, is the oldest. It was projected by the branch of the Church formerly in connection with the Church of Scotland, and is the only one that possesses the power of granting degrees. It combines the faculties of arts and theology. Since its establishment Queen's has educated more than 100 ministers for the Presbyterian Church. The combined resources and equipment of the Canadian Presbyterian colleges may be summed up as follows:
The General Assembly authorizes an annual collection to be made in all the congregations on behalf of its theological colleges. In addition to the above-mentioned theological colleges, there is a collegiate institute at Winnipeg, the capital of the province of Manitoba; it is controlled by the General Assembly, and supported by the Church at large. This institution has two professors-one of science and literature, and one of classics; also a lecturer in philosophy.
4. Periodicals. — Each of the churches previous to 1875 published a monthly magazine for the diffusion of missionary information and general religious intelligence. So that at the time of the union there were four such magazines-two in the maritime provinces, one in the province of Ontario, and one in the province of Quebec. Three of these had outlived more than a quarter of a century. The General Assembly agreed that there should be but one periodical for the whole Church, issued under its sanction, to be called The Presbyterian Record, and to be published monthly in the city of Montreal, at the rate of twenty-five cents per copy per annum. The first number of this periodical was published in January, 1876. Before the close of the year it had attained a circulation of 36,000 copies monthly.
5. A few ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland refused to enter into the union with the Canada Presbyterian Church, and, after the union was consummated, declared themselves to constitute the Synod in connection with the Church of Scotland. This synod met in Montreal in June, 1876. The Rev. David Watson was appointed moderator. Trustees were appointed for the various funds of the synod, and the usual committees were also appointed. A petition was presented from the congregation of West King, praying for ordinances in connection with the Church of Scotland, and complaining of the proceedings which had resulted in their being deprived of their Church property. A list was presented of congregations in similar circumstances. It was agreed that a commission with synodical powers be appointed to watch such cases, and if that were called for, to appoint a deputation to proceed to Edinburgh and attend the next General Assembly, or the meetings at any time of the Colonial Committee of the Church of Scotland. See, besides the article in Blaikie, Sketch of the Presb. Church throughout the World, p. 49 sq., the references at the end of the article SEE PRESBYTERIANISM.
19. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES OF COLONIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. — Besides the above in Canada, there are the following. In the account of these we chiefly follow the report of the late Pan-Presbyterian Council of Edinburgh, which we have largely used in the preceding details:
1. Australian Presbyterian Church. — In 1836, while this country was still used for penal colonization, the Presbyterian doctrine found its exponent in Victoria in the person of the Rev. Mr. Clow, a retired chaplain of a Highland regiment. In 1838 a missionary preacher was sent by the Church of Scotland to Melbourne, and soon others went over, and, until 1846, Presbyterianism in this colony was wholly dependent on the Kirk. After the discovery of gold in 1851, and the consequent rapid settlement of the colony, the Irish Presbyterian Church sent a number of ministers; and, by 1859, when a union of the different Presbyterian churches was proposed, there were congregations representing the regular Kirk, the Free Church, and the United Presbyterian, besides many smaller bodies. A complete union of all these various Presbyterians was finally effected in 1867, on the abolition of state aid.
The Presbyterian Church in Victoria has been formed on the Scottish model. In all its distinctive principles it remains loyal to the parent Church. While it has asserted an independent position for itself, it has adopted the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and the Second Book of Discipline, as its standards. Some variations have been admitted on administration. For example—
(1.) The General Assembly is not a representative body.
(2.) The Commission, which meets six months after the Assembly, deals not only with matters sent to it, but with all matters of which due notice has been given; but its decisions in these latter are subject to review by the next General Assembly.
(3.) It has no synods.
(4.) And no deacons courts. The secular affairs are entrusted to a committee elected by the congregation, one half of whom retire every year.
(5.) Adherents as well as communicants are allowed to vote for the first minister of a newly formed congregation.
(6.) The use of hymns and of instrumental music has been allowed, and congregations have almost without exception, and with wonderful unanimity, availed themselves of the allowance. The hymnbook of the English Presbyterian Church has been sanctioned and recommended.
(7.) Further, the Assembly has sanctioned a "Book of Prayers for Social Worship," which has been compiled with the view of assisting Christian men in the bush to hold service where a minister is not available.
The following statistics will give an approximate view of the present numerical and financial state of the Church:
Presbyterian population......…………………………….…..….130,000 Pastoral charges .........................…………………………..….......145 Ministers settled in pastoral charges……………………………......122 Unattached ministers supplying vacancies and new stations………...19 Elders ....………………………………………………….....…..... 400 Attending divine service ........………………………...........….. 60,000 Communicants.............…………………………................….... 15,000 Churches (besides halls and school-houses)……………………..... 234 Sittings in churches...................…………………………......... 38,000 Sabbath-schools................…………………………….................. 264 Teachers..............................………………………………….... 2,100 Scholars..............................……………………………............ 23,000 Bible classes ... ............………………………………..................... 73 Scholars ...............…………………........………………............ 1,800 Income for all purposes, 1875-76 ............……………………..£80,000 Capital funds held in trust for various schemes…………..…... £60,632
The schemes of the Church embrace two departments, ministerial and missionary:
(I.) Ministerial. — In order to make suitable provision for the ministry, the following funds have been established—
(a.) A capital fund for the endowment and support of a theological hall, established in 1865, with four chairs-Systematic Theology, Apologetics, Church History, and Exegetics-held provisionally by four ministers of the Church, and attended by fifteen students, of whom five are studying with a view to mission work. £50,000 will be required for the endowment of these four chairs. £14,000 are now in the hands of the Church, yielding an annual revenue of £900. Two university scholarships of £50 and £25 respectively have been founded for intending theological students, and two theological scholarships of the same amounts. But the larger of these is not confined to Presbyterian students. It is open to all denominations. The Assembly raises additional scholarships, when needed, by subscription.
(b.) A sustentation fund, for the more adequate support of the ministry, aims at securing a minimum stipend of £300 to every minister. Congregations lodge their moneys monthly in the post office savings bank. Their ministers draw the deposits once a quarter to the extent of £300 a year. The balance that remains undrawn, if any, accrues to the general sustentation fund, which is distributed among ministers whose stipend falls short of the minimum, with the proviso, however, that no congregation receives more than £50. Last year 38 out of 122 ministers participated in the fund. The income was derived from the following sources: Congregational subscriptions, £866; donations of £100 each from eight gentlemen, £800; small donations and legacy, £374; interest from savings bank, £35, in all £2075.
(c.) A capital fund, for the support of aged and infirm ministers; instituted not only in the interest of ministers, but as emphatically of congregations, to relieve them, in some measure, at least, from a very painful burden, and to insure their enjoying the ministrations of men in the prime and vigor of life. It is raised by voluntary contributions, and by a payment of £25, spread over five years, from every minister. The allowance is £50 per annum, with £2 for every year beyond five that the annuitant has hell a charge.
(d.) A fund for the support of the widows and orphans of deceased ministers, raised by a minister's rate of £5 per annum, and an annual congregational collection. In 1876 these two sources of income yielded £990. Interest on capital, £1063; in all £2053. Annuities to twenty widows and twenty four orphans, £965. The annuity is £50, with £10 for each child below eighteen. The latter sum is doubled when both parents are dead. By these respective agencies provision is made for the ministry in its four stages -when training for work, when at work, when past work, and when finally done with work.
(II.) Missionary. — Comprised under two branches home and heathen missions:
(a.) The home mission is charged with—
(1) securing a supply of ministers; (2) admitting accredited ministers from other churches; (3) assisting presbyteries in supplying vacancies; and (4) fostering mission-stations.
As the Church, in planting itself in a new land, is essentially a home mission, and as the demand for ministers has always been ahead of the supply, little has been attempted outside its own community. One or two of the larger congregations have, however, been vigorously prosecuting, while others are commencing, territorial work at their own hand. The committee have received generous assistance from the home churches in the way of ministerial supply. But the need is by no means abated. At this moment at least twelve men are urgently required.
(b.) The heathen mission embraces three departments:
(1.) The Chinese, of whom there are about 17,000 in Victoria. They are scattered in groups of two or three hundred over the colony. They are generally of an inferior type, but are very accessible to the teachings of the Gospel, which are given them at various points by the Christian churches. The Presbyterian Mission has taken the form for the present of a seminary for training Chinese catechists. It is conducted by one of the ministers of the Church, assisted by Mr. Cheong, a Chinese student.
(2.) The Aborigines, now reduced to about 1600. Charles Kingsley and others have put the natives of Australia at the bottom of the scale of rational beings, "if indeed they are entitled to be called men." It seemed as if they were likely to furnish a link in the ascending development of humanity. The Presbyterian Mission at Rosmali has exploded this notion. It is under the charge of two Moravian brethren, and furnishes delightful proofs of the elevating influence of Christianity even upon the most degraded savage, while the children of the school have outstripped all their competitors in the State schools of Victoria.
(3.) The New Hebrides, in conjunction with other churches in Scotland, Canada, and Nova Scotia. The Presbyterian Church of Victoria maintains a contingent of two missionaries on this interesting field. The children of the Sabbath-schools are pledged to collect £500 per annum for the maintenance of the Day-spring, mission-ship. The total contributions to the home and heathen missions in 1876 amounted to £2220. The capital invested funds of the Church, Sept. 30, 1876, were as follows:
1. Theological Hall endowment ..........…….......£14,220
2. Ornmond and Patrick Hamilton scholarships….. 2,000
3. Rokewood Church endowment...........………... 1,000
4. Infirm Ministers' Fund .................…………...... 8,209
5. Widows and Orphans' Fund .........…….......... 18,203
6. Brodie Bequest (Home-mission work)......…... 2,000
7. Loan Fund for church and manse building (being the accumulation of five years' state aid).
15,000 Total ..........….........……………........... £60,612
There are two colleges in connection with this Church -one for boys, under the principalship of Dr. Morison, which has run a long and prosperous career; the other for girls under the charge of the Rev. George Tait, was but recently opened.
2. Presbyterian Church of New South Wales. — In 1802 about a dozen Presbyterian families, living on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, resolved to meet for the worship of God according to the forms of their fathers, though they had no minister. A Mr. James Mein ministered to them as catechist. At a cost of £400 they built a church, which bears the appropriate name of Ebenezer. In 1823 Dr. Lang went to the colony, the first Presbyterian minister. Considerable additions were made thereafter, but the history of the Church was not harmonious, and various divisions took place. At length, in 1865, a general union took place, through the amalgamation of separate bodies corresponding to the Church of Scotland, the Free Church, and the United Presbyterian; the new body being called "The Presbyterian Church of New South Wales." According to the articles of union the Word of God is the supreme and only authoritative rule of faith and practice for the Church; the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Form of Presbyterial Church Government, the Directory for the Public Worship of God, and the Second Book of Discipline, are the subordinate standards of this Church; explanations are then given as to the relative authority of the subordinate standards, the renunciation of intolerant principles, and the recognition of the spiritual independence of the Church;
the jurisdiction of the Church is declared to be independent of other churches, and ministers and probationers from other Presbyterian churches are admissible if they afford satisfactory evidence of their qualifications and eligibility, and on their subscribing the formula. The Church has prospered since the union, but not in proportion to the growth of the colony. It now consists of 7 presbyteries, 68 ministers, 70 charges, and 108 church- buildings. It has schemes for Church Extension, Foreign Missions, Sabbath-schools, Sustentation Fund, and Church and Manse Fund; its foreign missions are to the New Hebrides and the Chinese; it has three theological tutors, and its estimated total income for 1875 was £15,000. The minimum stipend is £200 with, or £250 without, a manse. It is expected that £300 will now be reached through the Sustentation Fund. The legislature having passed an act for the establishment of denominational colleges affiliated to the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Presbyterian College has sprung into existence. It affords a home for young men attending the university. and the means of theological education for students of divinity. The General Assembly has enacted that after 1878 none but graduates shall be admitted as candidates for the office of the ministry.
Mission Work. — Three classes are recognized: the aborigines, the Polynesian tribes, and the Chinese in the gold-fields. The aborigines are so widely scattered that efforts among them have been chiefly desultory. A devoted Chinese catechist labors successfully among his countrymen at Sydney. The New Hebrides Mission has a share of support from this Church, which at one time supported the Rev. James D. Gordon, who, after returning to Eromanga, was murdered in 1872.
3. The Synod of Eastern Australia is formed of those who stood aloof from the general union of 1865, on the ground that Free-Church principles were not sufficiently maintained. It consists of two presbyteries, having nine ministers and charges.
4. Presbyterian Church of Queensland. — In 1859 the district of Moreton Bay was declared a separate colony, called Queensland. The first Presbyterian minister had arrived in 1847. In 1863 the separate congregations belonging to the different sections of Presbyterianism united as "The Presbyterian Church of Queensland." The basis of union was the Westminster Confession, and all the Presbyterian congregations in the colony were embraced. There are 3 presbyteries, 24 charges, and 20
ministers. The General Assembly meets the first Monday of May. There are committees for Sabbath-schools (2410 scholars), Home Mission and Church Extension, Sustentation, Training Young Men for the Ministry, and the Support of Aged and Infirm Ministers. The Presbyterian population of the colony is 22,090. The annual contributions are about £9000.
5. Presbyterian Church of Tasmania. — The first Presbyterian minister arrived at Hobart Town in 1822 or 1823. In 1835 there was constituted the Presbytery of Van Diemen's Land, and the Scotch Church was placed on an equality with the English. In 1845 an attempt was made by the bishop of the English Church in Van Diemen's Land to obtain authority over all the inhabitants, but the Presbyterians succeeded in checking this, and in getting a rule recognized limiting the power of the English bishop in these colonies to the superintendence of his own clergy. The Presbyterian Church has not been equally prosperous in this as in other colonies, and there is still a division in the ranks. The Presbytery of Tasmania and the Free Presbytery of Tasmania indicate this division. There are 17 charges in all, and 13 ministers.
6. Presbyterian Church of South Australia. — The first Presbyterian Church began in Adelaide in 1839, and for some years ministers from the different Presbyterian bodies continued to drop in. In 1865 a union was effected. There are now 11 ministers and 13 charges. Union College is supplied by an Independent professor of Church history; a Baptist, of the Greek Testament; and a Presbyterian, of theology.
7. New Zealand Presbyterian Church. — Presbyterianism was first planted here about the year 1840; at least the first minister went there then. The Church has made good progress, and has been geographically divided into The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand and The Presbyterian Church of Otago. In 1876 the Church in the northern section had 7 presbyteries, 57 ministers in charges, and 4 unattached. The Otago branch, founded in 1848 by a Free Church colony from Scotland, had 45 ministers, but in both sections there is a great demand for more. Besides the ministers there are a considerable number of evangelists who strive in some degree to make up for the want of a stated ministry. The New Zealand Churches present the same interesting spectacle as other young colonial churches, striving after an organization on the model of Scotland, and having committees and schemes organized for that purpose. Much has been done by the Presbyterian Church for general education, and the chair of moral philosophy in the University of Otago was endowed by them. The effort to obtain a well-educated ministry is conspicuous in its struggles, and in Otago a beginning has been made of a theological institution, and a professor of divinity and various tutors appointed. In other parts of the colony efforts have likewise been made to supply an educated ministry. But the difficulties in this direction have been great; many Presbyterians have joined other churches, and little has been done by the churches at home. Much is done in the way of Sunday-schools. Young Men's Christian Associations abound. Some congregations do little or nothing for missions; others are much interested in them. The New Hebrides Mission receives a good share of help, and recently something has been attempted for Fiji. There are committees for Sustentation, Church Extension, Mission, Temperance, Psalmody, and similar objects in both sections of the Church, betokening no small amount of activity and earnestness.
8. Presbyterian Church it South Africa. — When the Cape became an English colony in 1804, an application was made to the Church of Scotland for ministerial supply, and in 1822 and following years eleven ministers joined the Cape Church. In 1860 eight more Scotch ministers joined this Dutch Reformed body. There are, besides, nine Independent Presbyterian congregations in Cape Colony and Natal, numbering about 1000 members.
9. Other Colonial Churches. — In connection with the Church of Scotland, there are:
Congregations. Ministers. In South America .......………....... 14 …………..13 In West Indies .......……….…......... 4 ……………4
In Ceylon ......…………….............. 9 …………….8
Connected with the Free Church of Scotland are: Congregations. Ministers. In South Africa ....…………........... 5 …………….3
In Natal ....................…………...... 4 ……………..3
In other places .............………..... 10 ……………..9
10. Presbyterian Church in Japan. — This body was organized in 1878 by a union of all Presbyterian missionaries in Japan. For doctrine, the Westminster Catechism, the canons of the Synod of Dort, the Shorter Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism were adopted. The constitution of the American Presbyterian Church was chosen as the model for administration.
See, besides the works already quoted in different sections of this article, Smith, Tables of Church History; Gardner, Faiths of the World, vol. 2; The American Cyclop. 13:809 sq.; Schem, Cyclop. of Education, s.v.; Marsden, History of Christian Churches and Sects, 2, 109 sq.; and Blaikie's Report, all of which we have freely used.
