A Concise History 
 
 of the 
 
 Presbyterian Church 
 
 Willi a m Hen ry Ko Berts 
 

 LiBRAnVOFKKiNGETON 
 
 JAN 2 7 2006 
 
 BX 8935 .R62 1920 
 Roberts, William Henry, 
 
 1844-1920. 
 A concise history of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the 
 
%%^ 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 . WITH AN ADDRESS ON THE 
 
 200IS ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THE GENERAL SYNOD 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. WILLIAM HENRY ROBERTS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 STATED CLERK OF THE GE 
 
 !7ERAL ASSSMBLI 
 
 LIBRARY OF PR 
 
 I 
 
 AM 2 7 
 
 THFOiOGiCAL ? 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH SCHOOL WORK 
 1920 
 
 NCCTC 
 
 006 
 
 ?,;"fKiA 
 
Copyright. 1917 
 Sj F. M. Braseli 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I The First Settlements 7 
 
 II The First Presbytery and Synod, 1706-1743 19 
 
 III Division and Growth, 1745-1775 26 
 
 IV National Independence and the Adoption of 
 
 the Constitution, 1776-1788 32 
 
 V Expansion and Revivals, 1789-1835 43 
 
 VI Old and New School Division, 1835-1869 55 
 
 VII Reunion and Advance, 1870-1900 63 
 
 VIII The Twentieth Century 67 
 
 [8] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This concise history of the Presbyterian Church 
 in the United States of America was first issued 
 in 1888, in connection mth the centennial cele- 
 bration of the adoption of the Constitution of 
 the Church. This edition brings the record uj) 
 to the present time. It is issued with the dis- 
 tinct understanding that it is nothing more than 
 an outhne of the more important features of the 
 history, and it does not claim anything like 
 completeness. 
 
 William H. Roberts. 
 
 (51 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 IN THE U. S. A. 
 
 I 
 THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS 
 
 AMERICAN Presbyterianism is in origin as 
 diverse as are the various peoples who have 
 blended to fo m the American nation. 
 Its component elements are, in the main, English 
 and Scotch-Irish , Scotch and Welsh, French and 
 German. The differing origins and national 
 relationships of the colonists in part account for 
 the existence of the several Presbyterian denomi- 
 national Churches in the United States. 
 
 THE SEVERAL DENOMINATIONAL CHURCHES 
 
 There are ten important denominational 
 Churches in the United States, designated either 
 as Presbyterian or Reformed, which stand for the 
 Reformed Faith and Presbyterian principles of 
 government and worship. Of these, three are 
 traceable to immigration from the mainland of 
 Europe, the Reformed (Dutch) Chu rch in America, 
 and the Chri stian Refor med Church , both of 
 which originated in Holland; and the Reformed 
 (German) Church in the United States, whose 
 [7] 
 
 // 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 beginnings were in Switzerland and Germany. 
 Four of the Churches are directly connected with 
 the Secession and Relief movements in the Church 
 of Scotland during the eighteenth century, viz.y 
 the United Presbyterian Church , the Synod of 
 the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North 
 America , the Reformed Presbyterian Church in 
 North^America, General Synod, and the Associate 
 Reforme djPresbyterian Synod. The English and 
 Welsh Presbyterian elements in the colonies, 
 along with the French Protestants, or Huguenots, 
 combined at an early day with the Scotch and 
 Scotch-Irish elements to form the Presbyterian 
 Church in the U nited^ States of America. The 
 Cumbe rland Presby terian Church was, and the 
 Presb yterian Churc h in the United States .(South) 
 is a branch of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States of America, the first separating in 
 1810, and the second in 1861. The first, how- 
 ever, reunited with the parent Church in 1906. 
 The youngest of the American Presbyterian 
 Churches, the Welsh, originated in the prin- 
 cipality of Wales, during the Revival of the 
 eighteenth century, and began organized work in 
 the United States about 1816. These Churches, 
 however they may differ in matters of practice 
 and worship, are substantially one in government, 
 and all maintain the principles of the Reformed 
 system of doctrine as contained either in the 
 Canons of the Synod of _ Pprt, the Westmi nster 
 [8] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Confession of Faith , or the Heidelberg Catechism . 
 Of these Churches the largest is the_Presb.Yterian 
 Church in the United ^ States of Americaj into it 
 have been gathered elements from all the others, 
 and its history is concisely stated in the follow- 
 ing pages. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND 
 
 The country which gave to the Reformed 
 Churches the Westminster Confession of Faith, 
 was the original home of the first settlers in the 
 American colonies with Presbyterian tendencies. 
 As early as 1572, Eng Us h Presbyterians o rganized 
 at Wandsworth, near London, a congregational 
 ! ^sbytery, and the Presbyterian wa s the con- 
 trolling element in the Pur itan party. This is 
 show^n by the fact that the Church of England 
 was by act of Parliament made Presbyterian in 
 government and worship in 1645. The stream of 
 Puritan emigration westward, set in motion from 
 England early in the seventeenth century by 
 Episcopal tyranny, touched first the shores of 
 Virginia. It would appear that before 1614 
 Rev. Alexander Whitakef was pastor of a church 
 at Bermuda Hundred, in that colony, and that the 
 affairs of the church were "consulted on by the 
 minister and four of the most religious men." 
 
 A little later Rev. Robert Bolton ministered 
 to a church on the Elizabeth River, where in 1690, 
 Makemie found Josias Mackie, an Irish Pres- 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 byterian. This Puritan element in the colony 
 was increased largely until the year 1642, when the 
 royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, commenced 
 a systematic and vigorous persecution of dis- 
 senters from the Church of England, which re- 
 sulted in the disbandment of their churches, and 
 the removal, in 1649, of a considerable portion of 
 them to Maryland. In the latter colony they 
 located at the mouth ofjhe SeveriL.Blyer, on the 
 site of the present city of Ajuiapoli^, and called 
 the place Proyidenc^. Several attempts to dis- 
 possess them were made by the agents of Lord 
 Baltimore, the proprietor of the province, but 
 under leaders named Durand and Bennett — 
 who, it is asserted, were ruling elders — they 
 conducted an armed and successful resistance, 
 and for a time controlled the colony. Their 
 numbers were increased about 1670 by colonists 
 from Fifeshire who had been brought over by 
 Captain Ninian Beale. Some churches dis- 
 tinctively Presbyterian were founded by them, 
 and it is certain that ministers holding Presby- 
 terian views — among whom were Francis Doughty 
 (1658) and Matthew Hill (1667)— preached in 
 their midst. The latter writing to Richard 
 Baxter in 1669, said: "We have many of the 
 Reformed rehgion, who have a long while lived 
 as sheep without a shepherd, though last year 
 brought in a young man from Ireland, who hath 
 already had good success in his work. We have 
 fiol 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 room for more ministers." It was in Maryland, 
 also, that WilKam Traill, moderator of the Pres- 
 bytery of Laggan, Ireland, found temporary 
 refuge in 1682, after his imprisonment in his 
 native land, and there Francis Makemie, of the 
 same Presbytery, a year later began his fruitful 
 labors. 
 
 THE NEW ENGLAND COLONISTS 
 
 Presbyterianism also entered the American 
 colonies with the settlers of New England. 
 John Robinson, the pastor of the Plymouth 
 Pilgrims while in Holland, has left on record the 
 following declaration of their Church principles: 
 "Touching the ecclesiastical ministry — namely, 
 of pastors for teaching, elders for ruling, deacons 
 for distributing the church's contributions — 
 we do wholly in all points agree with the French 
 Reformed churches." The first church ofiicer to 
 plant his feet on Plymouth Rock, in 1620, was 
 William Brewster , the ruling elder of this church. 
 A considerable number of the colonists at Salem, 
 Massachusetts, were also inclined to Presby- 
 terianism in church government. In 1630 Rev. 
 Richard Denton, a graduate of Cambridge 
 University, England, and a Presbyterian, settled 
 in Massachusetts, with a part of the church which 
 he had previously served for several years at 
 Coley Chapel, Hahfax, Yorkshire. In 1637 Rev. 
 Francis Doughty , the displaced vicar of Sodbury, 
 [11] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 Gloucestershire, settled in Taunton, Massa- 
 chusetts, but, holding and teaching the prevalent 
 Presbyterian view on the right to baptism of the 
 infants of baptized persons, he was driven out of 
 the colony by the civil authorities. Early 
 Cong regationalism was n early as intolerant of 
 op posing opinions as w as Episcopacy, and 
 tolerated for a comparatively short time only the 
 governmental views of John Robinson. Those 
 colonists who had Presb yt erian ten dencies found 
 it advantageous to settle in L ong Island and 
 Northern New Jersey . Desirous of enjoying 
 peaceful conditions they withdrew from persecu- 
 tion in Massachusetts, seeking shelter with the 
 Dutch Calvinists of New York. This trend of 
 influences is shown clearly in the movements of 
 Rev. Richard Denton , w^ho after a sojourn in 
 Connecticut finally sett led at Hemp stead, Long 
 Islan^ where he was pastor from 1644 to 1659, 
 and was definitely recognized as a Presbyterian 
 by the Reformed Dutch pastors of New Amster- 
 dam. That his church, like all churches in these 
 new communities, was composed in part of 
 Independents, cannot affect the fact that the 
 majority of the members were English and Dutch 
 Presbyterians. Denton returned to England in 
 1659, but his sons, Nathaniel and Daniel , re- 
 mained, and, it IS asserted, founded in 1656 the 
 Presbyterian church of Jamaica, Long Island . 
 If this claim can be substantiated, that church is 
 [12] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 the oldest dist inctivel y Presbyterian church in 
 the United States with an unbroken life^ The 
 oldest church on Long Island, however, now under 
 the care of the General Assembly, is that of South- 
 old^ estabhshed in 1640^ of which Rev. John 
 Youngs was the first pastor. This church was 
 founded by a colony from New Haven, Connecti- 
 cut, and came into relation to organized Presby- 
 terianism during the early years of the eighteenth 
 century. It is also worthy of note that the 
 founders of the first Presbyterian churches in 
 North and South New Jersey — in the former, 
 Newark (1666), Elizabeth (1665), Woodbndge 
 (1680); in the latter, Fairfield (1680)— were 
 from Connecticut and Long Island. Connecticut 
 as weU as Virginia may rightly be regarded as a 
 portion of the Presbyterian heritage. The church 
 at Freehold, New Jersey (1692), was established 
 by immigrants from Scotland. Further, the 
 Church at New Castle, Delaware, founded in 
 1657, was originally Reformed Dutch. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 By the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
 Presbyterian immigrants had pushed their way 
 into all the colonies. Some of these appear 
 to have entered North Carolina as early as 
 1650, jriven there by persecution in Virginia . 
 Presbyterians and Independents settled jointly 
 in South Carolina as early as 1670, and from th»t 
 [13] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 year to 1700 their number was increased by immi- 
 grants from Old and New England and from 
 Scotland. The most prominent ministers among 
 them were Rev. Josep h Lord, from Massa- 
 chusetts, and Rev. Archibald Stob o, a Scotch- 
 man, who settled in Charleston in the year 1700. 
 The latter clergyman was a member of the ill- 
 fated Scotch colony, established on the Isthmus of 
 Darien in 1698-1699, and which owing to French 
 and Spanish opposition continued only one year. 
 This colony had connected with it the first 
 regular Presbytery estabhshed on the American 
 continent, that of Caledonia. A Presbytery in 
 connection with the Kirk of Scotland was es- 
 tablished in South Carolina, somewhere about 
 1720, but this judicatory did not come into con- 
 nection with the General Assembly until 1811. 
 
 FRENCH AND WELSH CHURCHES 
 
 Churches of French Protestants — commonly 
 called Huguenot churches — distfflfctively Presby- 
 terian both in faith and in polity, were also es- 
 tablished in the colonies at an early date and at 
 several points: at New York in 1683, on Staten 
 Island in 1685, at Charlesto n, South Carolina, in 
 1686, at Boston in 1687, at New Roch elle, New 
 York, in 1688. These churches originated in the 
 expulsion of Protestants from France, in conse- 
 quence of the revocation in 1685 of the edict of 
 toleration known as the Edict of Nantes. The 
 [14 1 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Huguenot churches, with one exception, have 
 ceased to exist. The oldest Welsh Presbyterian 
 Church in the colonies was that in the Great 
 Valley, Chester County, Pennsylvania, founded, 
 it is claimed, about 1685, which had as its 
 ruling elder Mr. David Evan. This church 
 became a part of the General Presbytery in 1710. 
 
 THE SCOTCH-IRISH 
 
 The religious necessities of the Presbyterian | mjC^ 
 colonists led them to make application time and ! %, 
 again to their friends in Great Br itain and Ireland j ^ 
 for a supply of ministers . In 1680 the Presbytery 
 of Laggan, Ireland, already referred to, received a 
 letter from Colonel William Stevens, a member of 
 
 e council of the pr ovinc e of Maryland, entreat- 
 that ministers bjpH|flk^hs^||^ny and to 
 Virginia. ii[^^|^mi^|pHRPflHUft|uest^ ^ 
 Rev. Francis M^BBP; a native of^Ripi^m^^HMH 
 Ireland, came to Maryland in 1683. Mr. IVSHW^^ 
 niie's landing marked a new era in the develop- 
 ment of American Presbyterianism. At the time 
 of his advent isolated Presbyterian ministers, and 
 churches in large part dependent upon an itinerant 
 ministry, were scattered from New England to the 
 CaroHnas. He personally organized churches at 
 Snow Hill and Rehoboth, Maryland, in 1683. 
 Further, within a few years after his arrival, owing 
 to prelatical persecution, a stream of immigration 
 set in from Scotland and the North of Ireland, 
 [15] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 which largely swelled the Presbyterian popula- 
 tion in the middle and southern colonies. This 
 movement was of great and permanent value to 
 the Presbyterian Church. It has continued 
 for two hundred years with an increasing volume 
 and undiminished influence. The larger portion 
 of the immigrants settled in New Jersey, Eastern 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and the 
 valley of Virginia. No race of men has suffered 
 or dared more in the cause of civil and religious 
 liberty, than that whose common name is the 
 Scotch-Irish. Like the Puritans, they sought 
 in the colonies liberty to worship God free 
 from the tyranny of narrow-minded prelates, 
 and like the Presbyterian Puritans they were 
 animated by high and noble aims, a sincere 
 sympathy with intellectual culture and a deeply- 
 religious spirit. Independents in New England, 
 and Episco palians in the m iddle colonies, did deny 
 to o thers the freedom they c laimed for th emselves ; 
 
 I . Presb yterians, howev er ^ whether of I^ritish, 
 
 I Scotch-Irish or continental origin, never assailed 
 
 ^1 t he rights^of their fellow men. Holding strenu- 
 
 \\j|^.l ously to the truth that "God alone is Lord of the 
 conscience," they practiced the doctrine they 
 professed. And none have been more persistent 
 in maintaining true liberty in Church and in 
 State, none have been more thoroughly Pres- 
 byterian in doctrine and in practice, than the men 
 of that race whose traditions cluster about the 
 fl6l 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 siege of Londonderry and the conventieles of the 
 Covenanters. To them American Presbyterian- 
 ism is largely indebted for its vigor, tenacity and 
 prosperity. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 The first English Presbyterian minister who 
 preached in the city of New York appears to have 
 been Rev. Franci s Doughty , already referred to, 
 who in 1643 held services in the Reformed Dutch 
 church founded in 1623 and located within the 
 fort. He remained in New York until 1648, 
 removing to Flushing about 1649, and about 
 1658 to Maryland, where his brother-in-law, 
 WilHam Stone, was deputy governor. After his 
 departure from New York, English services, when 
 held, were conducted until 1652 by Re v. Rich ard 
 Denton, of Hempstead. It was for the so- 
 called crime of preaching the gospel to the Pres- 
 byterians of the city, that Rev. F rancis Makemie 
 was tried and imprisoned in 17 07 by the Epis.- 
 copal govern or. Lord Cornbury . A Presby- 
 terian church was not organized in New York 
 City until 1717, and it is interesting to note in 
 connection with the event that the General 
 Synod in 1719 ordered one tenth of a mission ary f dU^j 
 collection taken up by the Synod of Glasgow and ! ''iS^' 
 Ayr, Scotland, t o be g^iven to the Presbyterian ! ^^*** 
 co ngregatio n of New York for "the support of the ^ ^^"^^^ 
 gospel among them." The large contributions 
 [17] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 now made in the city of New York, for both home 
 and foreign mission purposes, are evidence of 
 the value of investments made in accordance with 
 the Scriptural advice, "He that hath pity upon the 
 poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he 
 hath given w^ill he pay him again." 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The first Presbyterian congregation in Phila- 
 delphia met in 1692 in the *'Barbadoes Company 
 Warehouse." In 1698 Rev. J edid iah Andrews, 
 a graduate of Harvard College, began his minis- 
 trations in the city. In the year 1701, Mr. 
 Andrews was ordained and installed pastor of 
 what is now the First Church. An Episcopalian 
 writer in 1703, commenting on the prospects of 
 Presbyterianism in Philadelphia, wrote, " They 
 have here a Presbyterian meeting and minister, 
 one called Andrews; but they are not like to 
 increase here." As Philadelphia Presbyterianism 
 in 1703, with its one weak congregation, is com- 
 pared with Philadelphia Presbyterianism in 1916, 
 with its more than one hundred churches, the 
 exclamation springs naturally to the lips, "What 
 hath God wrought!" 
 
 T81 
 
II 
 
 THE FIRST PRESBYTERY AND SYNOD, 
 1706-1743 
 
 THE FIRST PRESBYTERY 
 
 Increase in population, joined with greater 
 facilities for intercommunication, made it both 
 desirable and possible to give colonial Presby- 
 terianism an organized form. In the movement 
 for this result Makemie was the master sp irit: 
 he filled, in fact, the office of an apostle. His 
 journeys extended from South Carolina to Massa- 
 chusetts, and he sought assistance both in Great 
 Britain and in New England. Indefatigable in 
 labor, he suffered persecution and dared imprison- 
 ment in behalf of the cause he had so heartily 
 espoused, and finally secured the organization of 
 the first American Presbytery , it is believed, in 
 March, 1706 . For some time it was held that the 
 year of organization was 1705, but that view was 
 taken ow^ng to the fact that at the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, the legal year began on 
 March 25, but a change was made in all English 
 lands to January 1 as New Year's Day, in 1752. 
 March 1705 of the eighteenth century, therefore, 
 was by our calendar, March, 1706. To make the 
 matter yet clearer, December the twelfth month 
 of the present year is the tenth (decem) month of 
 
 [19] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 the old legal year. The exact day cannot be 
 determined, owing to the loss of the first page of 
 the records. The ministers constituting the 
 body were Francis Makemie, of Accomac County, 
 Virginia; Jedidiah Andrews, of Philadelphia; 
 JohnWilson, of New Castle, Delaware; Samuel 
 Davis , of Lewes, Delaware; Nathaniel Taylor , of 
 Marlborough, Maryland : J ohn Hampton , of Snow 
 Hill, Maryland; and Ge orge MacNish . from the 
 same colony. The first meeting of the Presbytery 
 of which record remains was held at Freehold, 
 New Jersey, December 29, 1706, and the business 
 engaged in was the examination, with a view to 
 ordination, of a Mr. John Boyd. At the meeting 
 held at Philadelphia, March 22, 1707, the names 
 of the following ruling elders appear in the 
 minutes: "Joseph Yard, William Smith, John 
 Gardiner*, James Stoddard." It is proper here 
 to state that this first Presbytery never calls itself 
 by a local name, and that its true appellation is 
 therefore judged to be *'the General Presbytery." 
 It has been held in some quarters that the first 
 Presbytery was simply an association of ministers 
 for purposes of fellowship and counsel. This is 
 not the fact. Ruling elders were present, repre- 
 senting the churches, in all the meetings, ecclesi- 
 astical acts were adopted appropriate only to a 
 Presbytery, and in 1712, in connection with the 
 case of Rev. Mr. Wade, minister at Wood- 
 bridge, the record reads, "we admitted him as a 
 [20 1 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 member of our Presbytery, and lie submitted him- 
 self wilKngly to our Constitution." The Presby- 
 tery was "in the exercise of Presbyterian govern- 
 ment.'* 
 
 THE GENERAL SYNOD ORGANIZED 
 
 It will be noticed that Presbyterian ministers 
 from the vicinity of New York or from the Caro- 
 linas were not present in the General Presbytery 
 at its ear her meetings; ministers and churches 
 from those sections of the country came into rela- 
 tion to organized Presbyterianism at later dates. 
 The first of such churches to come under the care 
 of Presbytery were the English churches on Long 
 Island, and these were followed by the Welsh 
 churches in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. 
 By the year 1716, the Church had increased to 
 such an extent that it was deemed advisable to 
 constitute a Synod, and organize four Presbyteries , 
 viz., Philadelphia, New Castle , Snow Hill, and 
 Long Island. The Synod met for the first time 
 at Philadelphia, September 17, 1717 , the modera- 
 tor at the opening session being Rev. George 
 MacNish , of Jamaica, Long Island, and the 
 moderator elected being Rev. Jedidiah Andrews, 
 of Philadelphia. The Church then consisted of 
 nineteen m inisters, about forty churches and some 
 three thous and communicants. One of the 
 principal acts of the Synod was the establishment 
 in 1717 of a fund for pious uses to be disposed of 
 
 [21] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 according to the discretion of the Synod. This 
 act was the initiative movement in connection 
 with all the benevolent and missionary work of the 
 Church. 
 
 THE SYNOD OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 The year of the estabhshment of the General 
 Synod and the follomng years, were years of con- 
 siderable immigration into the colonies from the 
 North of Ireland, in part owing to persecution 
 and in part to oppression by landlords. A portion 
 of the immigrants settled in New England, and 
 churches composed of them were established at 
 Londonderry, New Hampshire; Worcester, Massa- 
 chusetts; Casco Bay, Maine, and other places. 
 In 1745 the Presbytery of Londonderry was or- 
 ganized, and iji 1775 the Synod of New England 
 wa g^ erecte d, composed of the Presbyteries of 
 Lon d onderry , Salem and Palm er. This Synod, 
 however, owing to the isolation and feebleness of 
 the churches, was dissolved in 1782, and its 
 niinisters a nd churches were formed into the Pres - 
 bytery of Salern — a name changed in 1793 to 
 Londonderry . This latter Presbytery did not 
 come under the care of the General Assembly until 
 1809, and was made a part of the Synod of Albany. 
 The Presbyterians of New England for many 
 years were left to themselves, but during this 
 century have been organized (1912) into a Synod, 
 which has been greatly prospered. 
 [22] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 THE ADOPTING ACT, 1729 
 
 In 1729 the General Synod passed what is called 
 the Adopting Act, by which it was agreed *'that 
 all the ministers of this Synod, or that shall here- 
 after be admitted into this Synod, shall declare 
 their agreement in and approbation of the Con- 
 fession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter 
 Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at West- 
 minster," and "also adopt the said Confession as 
 the confession of our faith." From this year for- 
 ward this solemn declaration on the part of its 
 ministers has been required by the Church, with 
 the understanding that scruples with respect to 
 any article or articles of said Confession or 
 Catechisms, shall be made known to the judica- 
 tory into whose membership ministers desire to 
 enter, and their accordance with essential faith 
 shall be judged, not by the applicants for admis- 
 sion, but by the judicatory. In this connection, 
 it is to be remembered that the Synod in 1721 
 said that "we have been many years in the exer- 
 cise of Presbyterian government and discipline 
 as exercised by the Presbyterians in the best 
 Reformed Churches." The Adopting Act of 
 1729 was therefore a formal adoption of the West- 
 minster Standards alike of doctrine, polity and 
 worship as the definite law of the Church. By 
 this iVct the American Church became a "Con- 
 fessional Church," a church holding to a definite 
 system of doctrine. 
 
 [231 
 
 ^ 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 The General Synod in the same year took 
 action in the Hne of the denial of the authority 
 of the Stat e o ver the Chur ch, Chapter xxiii of 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith deals with 
 the power of the civil magistrate, and the Synod 
 denied to the civil magistrate what the West- 
 minster Assembly permitted — a controlling power 
 over Synods with respect to "the exercise of their 
 ministerial authority." It also denied to the 
 civil magistrate the "power to persecute any for 
 their religion." These were notable acts on the 
 part of the Synod, appearing to be the first 
 declaration, by an organized Church on American 
 soil, of the freedom of the Church from control 
 by the State. Even in New England at this time 
 Church and State were united. Congregational- 
 ism, as first established in the colonies, was a chain 
 whose links were steel. An organization of so- 
 called independent churches, its ministers were 
 held to orthodoxy and its members to right living, 
 by the strong arm of the civil law. It was the 
 civil magistrate, at the call of the Church, who 
 drove out from Massachusetts Williams the 
 Baptist, and Doughty the Presbyterian. The 
 Congregational was the established church in 
 Connecticut until 1818, and in Massachusetts 
 until 1834, and even to-day in three New England 
 states there are legal provisions for the support 
 of Congregational Churches by taxation. Tg 
 [24] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 the Presbyterian m ust the hon or be given of the 
 first definit e statement, by a n organized bod^ on 
 American soil, of what to-day is recognized as 
 the distinctively American and true doctrine, of, 
 the right relation between Chur ch and State "a 
 free Church in a free State." 
 
 [25] 
 
Ill 
 
 DIVISION AND GROWTH, 1745-1775 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW SIDE 
 
 The first division of the Presbyterian Church 
 took place in 1745. The occasions, strange as it 
 may seem, were the spiritual destitutions prev- 
 alent in the colonies, and the revival of religion 
 which, beginning in New England, in part under 
 Jonathan Edwards, in 1734, extended to the 
 Middle Colonies, and was intensified by the preach- 
 ing of the celebrated evangelist, Rev. George 
 Whitefield. The Synod did not divide, as some 
 writers hold, according to lines of nationality. 
 The parties to the division were known as "Old 
 Side" and "New Side," but the former were 
 not solely Scotch and Irish, nor the latter English 
 and Welsh. The leaders of the "New Side" were 
 William and Gilbert Tennent, ministers born in 
 Ireland, and foremost among the "Old Side" 
 party was Jedidiah Andrews, a New England 
 man and pastor of the First Church, Philadelphia. 
 Further, Yale and Harvard Colleges championed 
 the "Old Side." The strife arose first in connec- 
 tion with the standard of ministerial qualifications. 
 William Tennent had established the first Pres- 
 byterian theological school in this land at Ne- 
 shaminy, Pennsylvania, in 1726 — an institution 
 [26] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 commonly called the *'Log College." By 1737 he 
 had prepared seven or eight persons for the 
 ministry. Objections were made to the examina- 
 tion and ordination of these students, by some 
 members of the Synod, on the ground that the 
 course of study which they had pursued was not 
 adequate to the requirements of the ministry. 
 The Presbytery of New Brunswick sided with the 
 Tennents, and while the controversy was in 
 progress Whitefield came upon the ground, revivals 
 of religion broke out anew, and as a result a still 
 greater need for ministers was created. Tennent 
 and those who sided mth him entered earnestly 
 into revival work, and to* their methods, as well 
 as to the qualifications of the "Log College" 
 ministers, objections were made. The *'New 
 Side," however, was by no means blameless in 
 conduct, for its members committed many acts, 
 and published pamphlets, against their opponents 
 of a character not warranted by Christian charity. 
 Dr. Charles Hodge states that the brethren of the 
 New Brunswick Presbytery were the aggressors 
 in the controversy, but on the other hand the 
 "Old Side" resorted to violent measures for redress 
 which widened the breach between them and their 
 adversaries. After repeated efforts for reconciha- 
 tion had failed, the Presbytery of New Bruns- 
 wick in 1741 withdrew from the Synod, and in 
 1745, with the Presbytery of New York and cer- 
 tain ministers of the Presbytery of New Castle, 
 [27] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 formed the Synod of New York. It is here to be 
 noted that the terms "Old Side" and "New 
 Side," designating the parties to this early- 
 division of the Church, are not in any manner 
 equivalent to the terms "Old School" and "New 
 School," in use a century later. 
 
 THE FIRST COLLEGE 
 
 One good result from the controversy respecting 
 ministerial qualifications, carried on by the 
 "Old Side" and the "New Side," was the impetus 
 given to the cause of ministerial education. The 
 former party established in 1744 an academy. 
 The "New Side" established the institution now 
 knowTi as Princeton College, which has exerted a 
 widespread and beneficial molding influence on 
 American Presbyterianism. The charter of this 
 college was granted in 1740; its first title was 
 "The College of New Jersey," and its first presi- 
 dent was Rev. Jonathan Dickinson. Located 
 first at EHzabethtown, New Jersey, it was after- 
 ward removed to Newark, and again in the 
 autumn of 1755 to the town where it is now 
 established. Princeton College, now Princeton 
 University, it should be distinctly remembered, 
 was founded for the purpose of securing to the 
 Presbyterian Church an educated ministry. It 
 was the first of the institutions to make clear the 
 fact that the Presbyterian is "a college-building^ 
 not a cathedral-building Church." 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 THE STANDARDS THE BASIS OF UNION, 1758 
 
 The two bodies into which the General Synod 
 had been divided in 1745, viz., the Synod of 
 Philadelphia and the Synod of New York, 
 were reunited in 1758 on the basis of the reception 
 of the Westminster Confession as their Confession 
 of Faith, and also of adherence to the Forms of 
 Worship and Discipline contained in the West- 
 minster Directory. The terms of union also 
 specified that candidates for the ministry should 
 give to the Presbytery hcensing them, competent 
 satisfaction as to their learning. At the time of 
 reunion the Church consisted of ninety-eight 
 ministers, about two hundred congregations, 
 many preaching stations, and some ten thousand 
 communicants. 
 
 THE MISSIONARY ADVANCE 
 
 During the period of the division, just referred 
 to, the famous and typical mission Presbytery of 
 Hanover was organized (1755) by the Synod of 
 New York. Finding a center in Hanover County, 
 Virginia, this Presbytery extended from Western 
 Pennsylvania to Georgia. Within its bounds, 
 prior to its organization, labored for years, at 
 times in loneliness, that ideal minister and mis- 
 sionary, Rev. Samuel Davies, afterwards presi- 
 dent of Princeton College. Born of Welsh 
 parents in the colony of Delaware, he was, next 
 to Whitefield, the most eloquent preacher of his 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 age, and was also at once the champion of freedom, 
 the founder of churches and the friend of learning. 
 The limits of his own parish were distant from 
 each other nearly a hundred miles, but his zeal 
 added to the care of his own numerous churches, 
 earnest efforts in Virginia, New England and 
 Great Britain for the advancement of the interests 
 of religion in all the colonies. The impulse 
 given by this untiring preacher of the Word and 
 by his colaborers to the Presbyterian Church in 
 the South and West, as well as in the Middle 
 Colonies, cannot be overestimated. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE DIVISION 
 
 The division of 1745 was not an unmixed evil; 
 its influence in some directions was undeniably 
 unfortunate, but nevertheless the wrath of man 
 was overruled of God. The principles of the 
 Church were more clearly defined, the duty of 
 charity was enforced, the value of revivals of 
 religion was emphasized, the cause of ministerial 
 education was greatly stimulated, and union led 
 naturally to resolute and energetic action in 
 church extension. The period extending from 
 the year 1758, the date of reunion, to the year 
 1775, was one of enlarged activity. The Presby- 
 tery of Dutchess County was organized (1763), 
 and the Presbytery of Orange, North Carolina, 
 (1770); the number of ministers was nearly 
 doubled: John Withe rspoon was inaugurated 
 [30] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 (1768) president of Princeton College, and also 
 professor of divinity; a general missionary col- 
 lection was ordered (1767) for the purpose of 
 maintaining the preaching of the gospel on the 
 frontier; a scheme for the support of candidates 
 for the ministry was approved (1771), and a com- 
 mittee appointed (1773) to supervise the distribu- 
 tion of religious publications. These last three 
 acts of the Synod were severally the germs of our 
 Boards of Home Missions, Education, and 
 Publication. 
 
 [SI] 
 
IV 
 
 NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND THE 
 ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION, 
 
 1776-1788 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 
 
 It was not alone, however, in matters relating 
 to religion that the Church took action with a 
 view to the best interests of the colonies. Re- 
 ligious liberty at this period was endangered by a 
 proposal to set up in the colonies an Episcopal 
 establishment, for whose support so-called dis- 
 senters would be taxed, and under which they 
 would suffer many grievous burdens. To prevent 
 the carrying out of a scheme so fraught with 
 peril to the highest welfare of American Christians, 
 the Synod entered (1766) into a plan of union with 
 the General Association of Connecticut, one 
 main purpose of which was to protect the rights 
 ^of the churches. In fact, one of the most power- 
 _ful influences in bringing on and carrying to 
 ^successful termination the American Revolution, 
 was the invincible opposition of Presbyterians 
 ^and Congregationalists to this threatened Epis- 
 ^ copal attack upon the inalienable rights of con- 
 ^ science. The influence of religious forces upon 
 human affairs is too often overlooked by secular 
 historians. 
 
 [32] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 THE CHURCH AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 
 
 The opening of the Revolutionary struggle 
 found the Presbyterian ministers and churches 
 to a man on the side of the colonies. In 1775 the 
 General Synod issued a pastoral letter, an extract 
 from which indicates the spirit prevailing in 
 the Church, and reads: "Be careful to maintain 
 the union which at present subsists through all the 
 colonies. In particular, as the Continental Con- 
 gress, now sitting at Philadelphia, consists of 
 delegates chosen in the most free and unbiased 
 manner by the body of the people, let them not 
 only be treated with respect and encouraged in 
 their difficult service, not only let your prayers be 
 offered up to God for his direction in their pro- 
 ceedings, but adhere firmly to their resolutions 
 and let it be seen that they are able to bring out 
 the whole strength of this vast country to carry 
 them into execution." Contemporary with this 
 letter of the Synod was the famous Mecklenburgh 
 Declaration of Independence, renouncing all- 
 allegiance to Great Britain, passed by a conven- 
 tion in Western North Carolina composed of- 
 delegates who were mostly Presbyterians, thus 
 forestalling the action of the Colonial Congress in 
 the same line by more than a year. Further, in 
 the sessions of the Congress, the influence of no 
 delegate exceeded that wielded by Rev. John 
 Witherspoon, president of Princeton College, the 
 only clerical signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
 [331 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 pendence — "a man Scotch in accent and strength 
 of conviction, but American at heart." The 
 American Presbyterian Church never faltered in 
 her devotion to the cause of the independence of 
 these United States; her ministers and members 
 periled all for its support, being ready, with 
 Witherspoon, to go to the block, if need be, in 
 defense of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 With the restoration of peace, in 1783, the 
 Church gradually recovered from the evils 
 wrought by war, and the need of a fuller organiza- 
 tion was deeply felt. The independence of the 
 United States had created new conditions for the 
 Christian Churches as well as for the American 
 , people. Presbyterians were no longer merely 
 '' tolerated in certain parts of the country, but were 
 • equally entitled with Episcopalians and Congre- 
 . gationalists, in all the states, to full religious and 
 . civil rights. In 1785 the General Synod, there- 
 fore, appointed a committee to draw up a Plan 
 of government and discipline. This committee 
 presented a final report in 1787, which was sent 
 down to the Presbyteries and churches for their 
 consideration, but not for adoption or approval. 
 ' On the 28th of May, 1788, the Synod, having 
 , previously amended this plan, formally adopted 
 , it as the Constitution of the Church. On the 
 same day it ordered that the Confession of 
 [341 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Faith, amended the day previous, should be a 
 part of the Constitution, and on the day following 
 it also ordered that the Westminster Larger and 
 Shorter Catechisms and the Directory for Wor- 
 ship should be parts of the same instrument. 
 The Confession of Faith is substantially that of 
 the Westminster Assembly, the only alteration 
 of note in it being in Chapter xxiii, which deals 
 with the civil magistrate. Instead of giving to 
 the magistrate, as is done in the original West- 
 minster Confession, power to control and super- 
 vise Synods, the General Synod declared it to 
 be the duty of civil magistrates '*to protect the 
 Church of our common Lord, without giving the 
 preference to any denomination of Christians 
 above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesi- 
 astical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free 
 and unquestioned liberty of discharging every 
 part of their sacred functions without violence 
 or danger." The Catechisms were adopted with 
 one amendment — namely, the striking out in the 
 Larger Catechism, from the catalogue of sins 
 enumerated as forbidden by the second command- 
 ment, the sin of "tolerating a false religion." 
 The divergences from the original Westminster 
 standards in the governmental portions of the 
 Constitution were numerous, and the Directory 
 for Worship is largely a new work. In the text 
 of the latter, as proposed in 1787, forms of prayer 
 were introduced, but the Synod declined to ap- 
 [351 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 prove of anything approaching the character of a 
 Hturgy. Worthy of notice is it in connection 
 with the adoption of the Constitution that the 
 changes were all made in the direction of liberty — 
 of liberty of worship, of freedom in prayer, and, 
 above all, of the liberty of the Church from smy 
 control by the State. From its first establish- 
 ment, the Presbyterian Church has been a fore- 
 most advocate of liberty alike in things civil and 
 religious. And in 1788 it became a Church with 
 , a Constitution adapted to the needs of a new, a 
 growing, and a great nation. 
 
 THE DOCTIIINAL SYSTEM 
 
 The adoption of the Constitution in 1788 leads 
 naturally to the statement of the fact that the 
 Churches holding to the Presbyterian system have 
 • developed in the course of their history such a 
 natural relation to one great type of Christian 
 '» doctrine that the words Calvinistic and Presby- 
 . terian are to a large extent synonymous. The 
 controlling idea of the Presbyterian or Calvinistic 
 system of thought, both theoretically and practi- 
 ' cally, is the doctrine of the unconditioned sover- 
 \eignty of God. By this sovereignty is meant 
 the absolute control of the universe in all that it 
 contains, whether visible or invisible things, by 
 the one supreme, eternal, omniscient, omnipres- 
 ent and omnipotent Spirit, for wise, just, holy and 
 Moving ends, known fully alone to himself. This 
 [36] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 divine sovereignty finds practical expression in 
 the Presbyterian system through its organizing 
 principle, the sovereignty of the Word of God as 
 the supreme and infallible rule of faith and 
 practice. The Presbyterian system accepts and' 
 incorporates, as of perpetual binding obligation, 
 only those principles and regulations which can 
 be proved to have a divine warrant. This 
 obligation applies to doctrine, government and 
 worship, and this obhgation the Presbyterian 
 Church reaffirmed in 1788. 
 
 THE CHURCH GOVERNMENT 
 
 The supremacy of God's Word over human 
 thought and conduct, is the reason why Presby- 
 terians claim that their Church government as 
 expressed in the Standards of 1788, finds clear 
 warrant in the Holy Scriptures. One of its chief 
 sources, it is asserted, was the Jewish ecclesiastical 
 system of the time of Christ. The elders of the 
 synagogue became the elders of the Christian 
 congregation; the chief ruler of the synagogue 
 was reproduced in the episcopos or parochial 
 bishop; the local sanhedrin was modified and 
 estabhshed as the Presbytery; and the Great 
 Sanhedrin was the prototype of synods, general 
 assembhes, and councils. The principles of New 
 Testament church government further led to 
 definite statement of the views taken of the 
 Church, her officers and judicatories as follows: 
 [371 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 the universal Church consists of all persons who 
 profess the true religion, together with their 
 children; the power of the Church is simply 
 declarative and spiritual; there is but one order 
 in the Christian ministry; ruling elders, elected 
 by the congregations, are to be united with 
 ministers in the government of the churches; 
 and the temporal affairs are to be managed by 
 deacons or trustees. The judicatories or church 
 courts established in successive order are (1) 
 the Session, governing the particular church, and 
 consisting of the pastor and the ruhng elders: 
 (2) the Presbytery, governing all the congrega- 
 tions within a limited territory, and consisting 
 of all the ministers therein and one elder from 
 each Church; (3) the Synod, consisting of at least 
 three Presbyteries, exercising supervisory author- 
 ity over both Presbyteries and congregations, and 
 consisting of both ministers and elders, and (4) 
 the General Assembly, having supervisory power 
 over the general interests of the whole denomina- 
 tion, and constituting the bond of union, peace, 
 correspondence and confidence. The power of 
 these church courts is both legislative, executive 
 and judicial, and the higher courts are given 
 authority over the lower courts, as set forth 
 definitely in the Constitution of the Church. 
 They all emphasize that Presbyterian govern- 
 ment is not by single men, such as diocesan 
 bishops, but by representative assemblies. 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP 
 
 On the important matter of church member- ' 
 ship, the Presbyterian Church, in 1788 and since, » 
 has made clear that the terms of admission of 
 members into the visible Church are the same as 
 the conditions of salvation revealed in the Holy 
 Scriptures, viz.: belief on the part of the applicant 
 in one God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and - 
 faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the divine and ' 
 all-sufficient Saviour, joined with the declaration '^ 
 of a sincere purpose to lead a life acceptable to ' 
 God in Jesus Christ. No church, it is claimed, , 
 has a right either to add to or take from these 
 terms or conditions. Church members as to 
 their conduct are under the control of the Session 
 of the particular church, providing, however, that 
 every member deeming himself aggrieved may 
 appeal or complain to a higher court. 
 
 THE WORSHIP APPROVED 
 
 Presbyterian worship as reaffirmed in the 
 Directory of Worship in 1788, is based as to its 
 character on the facts that a human priesthood is 
 unknown to the New Testament, and that the * 
 only priest of the new dispensation is the Lord 7 
 Jesus Christ. Ministers are not priests, but , 
 preachers. Sacerdotalism, therefore, whether in* 
 connection with the sacraments, or enforced 
 liturgies, or priestly vestments, has no place in the 
 worship of the Presbyterian churches. The . 
 [39] 
 
A COIs/ciSE HISTORY OF 
 
 sacraments are simply ordinances, wherein by 
 sensible signs Christ and his benefits "are repre- 
 
 ' sented, sealed, and applied to believers." Prayer 
 is the free intercourse of the soul with God, and is 
 
 I therefore to be voluntary. Ministers are not 
 mediators between God and man, possessed of a 
 delegated divine authority to forgive sins, but 
 simply leaders of the people in all that constitutes 
 the worship of and fellowship with the triune God. 
 
 ' True worshipers worship the Father neither in 
 Samaria nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in 
 
 ' truth. God is nigh to every penitent and believ- 
 ing soul. 
 
 By its doctrine the Presbyterian Church has 
 always honored the divine sovereignty without 
 denying human responsibility; by its polity it 
 has exalted the headship of Christ while giving 
 full development to the activities of the Christian 
 people; and in its worship it has magnified God, 
 while it brings blessing to man, by insisting upon 
 the right of free access on the part of every soul 
 to him whose grace cannot be fettered in its 
 ministrations by any human ordinances whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 THE CONTEMPORANEOUS CONSTITUTIONS 
 
 The Constitution of the Church was adopted 
 in the same year in which the Constitution 
 of the United States was framed. The in- 
 fluence which the Presbyterian Church exercised 
 [40] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 for the securing of unity between the colonies 
 was zealously employed, at the close of the 
 war for independence, to bring them into a 
 closer union. The main hindrance to the forma- 
 tion of the Federal Union, as it now exists, lay in 
 the reluctance of many of the states to yield to a 
 general government any of the powers which they 
 possessed. The federal party in its advocacy of 
 closer union had no more earnest and eloquent 
 supporters than John Witherspoon, Elias Bou- 
 dinot, and other Presbyterian members of the 
 Continental Congress. Sanderson, in his "Lives 
 of the Signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence," states that "Witherspoon strongly com- 
 bated the opinion expressed in Congress that a 
 lasting confederation among the States was 
 impracticable, and he warmly maintained the 
 absolute necessity of union to impart vigor and 
 success to the measures of government." In this 
 he was aided by many who had come to the views 
 which he, as a Presbyterian, had always main- 
 tained. Slowly but surely, ideas of government 
 in harmony with those of the Westminster 
 Standards, were accepted as formative principles 
 for the government of the United States, and that 
 by many persons not connected with the Presby- 
 terian Church. Among these were the great 
 leaders in the Constitutional Convention, James 
 Madison, a graduate of Princeton, who sat as a 
 student under Witherspoon; Alexander Hamilton, 
 [41] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 of Scotch parentage, whose famiharity with 
 Presbyterian government is fully attested; and 
 above all George Washington, who though an 
 Episcopalian, had so great a regard for the 
 Presbyterian Church and its services to the 
 country, that he not only partook of Holy Com- 
 munion with its members, but gave public expres- 
 sion to his high esteem. It is not that the claim 
 is made that the principles of Presbyterian 
 government were the sole source from which 
 sprang the government of the Republic, but it is 
 asserted that mightiest among the forces which 
 made the colonies a nation were the govern- 
 mental principles found in the Westminster 
 Standards, and that the Presbyterian Church 
 taught, practiced, and maintained in fullness, first 
 in this land, that form of government in accordance 
 with which the Republic has been organized. 
 The historian Bancroft says, "the Revolution of 
 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a 
 Presbyterian measure. It was the natural out- 
 growth of the principles which the Presbyterian- 
 ism of the Old World planted in her sons, the 
 English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the 
 French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the 
 Presbyterians of Ulster." 
 
 42 
 
V 
 EXPANSION AND REVIVALS, 1789-1835 
 
 THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
 
 After the adoption of the Constitution, and in 
 accordance with its provisions, the Synod ap- 
 pointed the G eneral Assembly to meet in the city 
 of Philadelphia, in the Second Presbyterian 
 Church, on the third Thursday of May, 1789, 
 It also resolved that, the General Synod be divided 
 into four Synods, severally named New York and 
 New Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, and The 
 Carolinas. The first of these Synods included 
 the Presbyteries of Dutchess County, New 
 Brunswick, New York, and Suffolk; the second, 
 those of Baltimore, Carlisle, Lewes, New Castle, 
 and Philadelphia; the third, those of Hanover, 
 Lexington, and Redstone; the fourth, those of 
 Abingdon, Orange, and South Carolina. The 
 moderator appointed bv the General Synod to 
 open the Assembly tn^s Rev. John Wither- 
 spoon, D. D>> of Princeton, New Jersey, and the 
 moder ator elected was Rev. John Rodgers , 
 D.D., of New York City. The basis of the 
 representation of the Presbyteries in the first 
 General Assembly was that every Presbytery con- 
 sisting of not more than six ministers should send 
 one minister and one elder as commissioners, 
 [43] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 and in like proportion for every six ministers. 
 The basis of representation at present is one 
 minister and one elder for every twenty-four 
 ministers, or for each additional fractional number 
 of ministers not less than twelve. One of the 
 fundamental principles of Presbyterianism is the 
 cooperation of the people with the ministry in 
 church government, and this end is attained 
 through the presence in all the church judica- 
 tories of ruling elders, who are called in the 
 Constitution "the representatives of the people." 
 The relation of the General Assembly to the 
 "people" is emphasized in the Form of Govern- 
 ment, by the statement that as the highest 
 judicatory of the Church "it shall represent 
 in one body, all the particular churches of this 
 denomination." 
 
 THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 In 1792 the General Assembly entered into 
 correspondence with the General Association of 
 the Churches of Connecticut, by the appointment 
 of a standing committee. ^ One result of the corre- 
 spondence was the admission of delegates from the 
 Association to sit in the Assembly, with the right 
 to speak, but not to vote. In 1793 Timothy 
 Dwight, Jonathan Edwards (the younger) and 
 Matthias Burnet, took their seats in the General 
 Assembly as delegates from the General Associa- 
 tion. In 1794 the delegates of the Association 
 [441 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 were permitted to vote. In 1809 the General 
 Association of Vermont, in 1810 that of New 
 Hampshire, and in 1811 that of Massachusetts, 
 were allowed representation in the General 
 Assembly. By the year 1830, however, owing to 
 opposition based mainly on constitutional 
 grounds, this usage had altogether ceased. As a 
 partial warrant for the above-mentioned practice, 
 it is sufficient to state that the majority of the 
 churches of Connecticut, at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, regarded themselves as being 
 practically Presbyterian churches. In 1799 the 
 Hartford North Association made the following 
 declaration: "This Association gives information 
 to all whom it may concern that the constitution 
 of the churches in the State of Connecticut, 
 founded on the common usages and the Confession 
 of Faith, Heads of Agreement and Articles of 
 Church Discipline adopted at the earliest period 
 of the settlement of the State, is not Congrega- 
 tional, but contains the essentials of the govern- 
 ment of the Church of Scotland or the Presby- 
 terian Church in America." This action will 
 explain why plans of correspondence and of union 
 were possible, between the General Association 
 of Connecticut and the General Assembly. It 
 is also an explanation of the strength of Presby- 
 terianism in Western New York, Northern Ohio 
 and other parts of the country where New Eng- 
 land elements abound in the population. 
 
 [451 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 THE PLAN OF UNION OF 1801 
 
 Another result of the correspondence entered 
 into with the General Association of Connecticut, 
 was the establishment in 1801 of the Plan of 
 Union. The year 1798 was a time of spiritual 
 depression, evidenced by the lack of vitality in 
 the churches, and in the general prevalence in 
 the country of infidelity, irreligion and immoral- 
 ity. In 1799 and 1800, however, the Holy Spirit 
 graciously visited Central and Western New York, 
 and Kentucky, in revivals of religion, while the 
 Church as a whole was decidedly quickened by 
 His influence. Many converts were added to the 
 churches, and the organization of new churches 
 became imperative in the frontier districts. To 
 avoid conflict or collision in the work of church 
 ^ extension, the General Assembly and the General 
 / Association devised the Plan of Union. This 
 scheme allowed Congregational ministers to serve 
 Presbyterian churches, and vice versa, without 
 interfering with the relation of either ministers 
 or churches to the bodies under whose control 
 / they naturally belonged. In cases of dispute, the 
 questions at issue could be referred either to a 
 Presbytery or to a council. Further, mixed 
 churches of Congregationalists and Presbyterians 
 could be governed by committeemen, and be 
 represented in Presbytery by one of the latter if 
 desired. As a result of the last provision named, 
 committeemen sat at times as commissioners in 
 [461 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 the General Assembly. The plan remained in 
 operation for a generation. At least five Con- 
 gregational Associations became officially parts 
 of the Presbyterian Church. That it was useful 
 to the churches consenting to it and to the cause 
 of Christ, for a time, is freely admitted; that it 
 brought into the Presbyterian Church a large and 
 vigorous New England element is unquestion- 
 able; but it also introduced germs of strife, for its 
 features were main causes of the controversies 
 and conflicts which in 1837 led to the great 
 division. 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF 1799-1800 
 
 The revival in Kentucky deserves more than 
 passing notice. Presbyterianism established it- 
 self in this state as early as 1783, in the person of 
 the justly celebrated Rev. David Rice. In 1786 
 the General Synod constituted the ministers and 
 churches in the territory into the Presbytery of 
 Transylvania, and the growth of the Church was 
 so rapid that in 1802 the Synod of Kentucky was 
 erected by the General Assembly. The popula- 
 tion of the state was hardy and courageous. As 
 in many other new communities, religion exerted 
 comparatively little influence. In 1799, however, 
 a revival spirit began to be manifested in certain 
 churches, and by July, 1800, included in its sweep 
 the whole region. Great multitudes gathered to 
 listen to the gospel, and the impossibility of 
 [47] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 accommodating them in churches and towns led 
 to the estabhshment of "camp meetings." These 
 meetings on this side of the Atlantic are therefore 
 Presbyterian in origin, and were warranted 
 by the circumstances of the people among whom 
 they were first instituted, for it was the revival 
 which brought about the camp meeting. The 
 revival also led to a demand for ministers beyond 
 the supply, and the excesses attending it gave rise 
 from 1803 onward to bitter controversy. The 
 action of the Cumberland Presbytery in ordaining 
 to the ministry persons, who, in the judgment of 
 the Synod of Kentucky, were not qualified for the 
 office, either by learning or by sound doctrine, 
 occasioned the dissolution of the Presbytery by 
 the Synod in 1806, and finally, in 1810, to the 
 initial steps in the establishment of what was 
 known as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
 
 THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES 
 
 The next important step in the history of the 
 Church was the establishment of a theological 
 seminary at Princeton, New Jersey. Previous to 
 the founding of this seminary, candidates for the 
 ministry were trained for their work, under the 
 care of such pastors of churches as were deemed 
 qualified for so important a trust. The Church, 
 however, had grown to so great an extent that the 
 demand for ministers could not be supplied under 
 the pastoral system of training, and in addition, 
 [48] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 the influence of the system was not always such 
 as to secure advantageous results. The Assembly 
 estabhshed, therefore, in 1812, a theological 
 seminary, at Princeton, New Jersey, and Dr. 
 Archibald Alexander was elected the first pro- 
 fessor. Other similar institutions were founded 
 as the need for them arose. The dates of the 
 establishment of the theological seminaries other 
 than Princeton are: Auburn (New York), 
 1819; Union (Virginia), 1824; Western (Alle- 
 gheny), 1827; Lane (Cincinnati), 1829; Mc- 
 Cormick (Chicago), 1830; Columbia (South 
 Carohna), 1831; Union (New York), 1836; 
 Danville (Kentucky), 1853; German (Dubuque), 
 1856; Biddle (colored). North CaroHna), 1868; 
 German (Bloomfield, New Jersey), 1869; San 
 Francisco, 1871; Lincoln (colored, Pennsylvania), 
 1871; Omaha, (Nebraska), 1891. Of these, the 
 seminaries in Virginia and South Carolina are 
 now in connection with the Presbyterian Church 
 in the United States, and Union Seminary (New 
 York) has renounced its connection with the 
 Assembly. 
 
 STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH IN 1812 
 
 It is interesting to note the strength of the 
 Presbyterian Church west of the AUeghenies at 
 the date of the foundation of the first theological 
 seminary. The estimate submitted is based upon 
 statements furnished by missionaries sent out by 
 [49] 
 
Presb. 
 Ministers. 
 
 Presb. 
 Churches. 
 
 70 
 
 101 
 
 49 
 
 78 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 40 
 
 91 
 
 26 
 
 79 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 the General Assembly, and is drawn from Gillett's 
 "History of the Presbyterian Church": 
 
 Pop. 
 
 Western Pennsylvania 200,000 
 
 Ohio 330,000 
 
 Western Virginia 75,000 
 
 Kentucky 400,000 
 
 Tennessee 200,000 
 
 Louisiana 120,000 
 
 Missouri Territory 21,000 
 
 Mississippi Territory 58,000 
 
 Indiana Territory 25,000 
 
 Illinois Territory 13,000 
 
 Total 1,502,000 193 368 
 
 EARLY HOME MISSIONARIES 
 
 The demands of the westward-moving tide of 
 population were the influential causes in the 
 establishment of the theological seminaries, and 
 those demands have kept pace through all the 
 years with the development and growth of the 
 nation. In the newer regions it is still as true as 
 it was in 1812, that the churches far exceed the 
 ministers in number, and it is also true that there 
 is, as of old, much call for self-denial and consecra- 
 tion. What self-denial on the part of home 
 missionaries meant in the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century, may be inferred from the reports 
 made to the General Assembly by the missionaries 
 of the day. One of them, for instance — James 
 Hall, missionary to the Mississippi Territory — 
 [50] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 "served on his mission seven months and thirteen 
 days, and received eighty-six dollars" for his sup- 
 port. Another, John Lindley, for four months' 
 work, during which he "baptized eleven children 
 and preached ninety-six times," received twelve 
 dollars and fifty cents. The men of this earlier 
 day willingly counted all things but loss for Christ, 
 and to their self-denying labors the Presbyterian 
 Church, humanly speaking, owes her present 
 position of power and influence west of the Alle- 
 ghenies. 
 
 GROWTH 1800-1830 
 
 The growth of the Church from 1800 to 1830 
 was very decided. The total membership in the 
 first year named was about twenty thousand; 
 in the last it was reported as being 173,327. The 
 regions in which progress was chiefly made are in 
 part indicated by the dates of the organization 
 of new Synods, viz., Kentucky and Pittsburgh, 
 1802; Albany, 1803; Geneva, 1812; North 
 Carolina, with South Carolina and Georgia, 1813; 
 Ohio and Tennessee, 1814; Geneva, 1821; New 
 Jersey, 1823; Western Reserve, 1825; West 
 Tennessee and Indiana, 1826; Utica, Mississippi 
 and South Alabama, and Cincinnati, 1829; and 
 Illinois, 1831. 
 
 THE HOME MISSION ENTERPRISE 
 
 The progress in Christian enterprise during the 
 period is exhibited by the mission work under- 
 
 [511 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 taken by the General Assembly. Home mission 
 effort was begun by the General Synod as early 
 as 1719, as already stated, and was continued 
 by the appointment from time to time of com- 
 mittees of supervision. The General Assembly 
 itself at first directly controlled the work; but 
 in 1802 led thereto by the growing importance of 
 the interests in hand, established a standing com- 
 mittee on home missions. This committee was 
 formally constituted by the Assembly in 1816 as 
 the Board of Missions, and in 1829 the Western 
 Missionary Society of the Synod of Pittsburgh was 
 consolidated with the Assembly's Board of 
 Dc -lestic Missions. Beginning in the city of 
 New York in 1719, the home mission cause has 
 grown little by little, until in 1916 it covers through 
 the work of the Assembly, of the Synods, and of 
 Presbyteries, every state and territory. 
 
 THE FOREIGN MISSION ADVANCE 
 
 The foreign mission work of the Church had 
 also its day of small things. The first action of the 
 General Synod in this direction appears to have 
 been the ordination of i^zariah Horton (1742) 
 as missionary to the Indians in the province of 
 New York. In 1751 collections were ordered for 
 Indian missions by the Synod of New York, and 
 in 1752 the proceeds were committed to those self- 
 denying missionaries and faithful ministers, 
 David and John Brainerd, whose work among the 
 [52] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Delawares was greatly blessed. Both the General 
 Synod and the General Assembly were unre- 
 mitting in their earnest advocacy of missions 
 to the aborigines. The movement for missions 
 to the heathen, outside the United States, was 
 ushered in with the commencement of the present 
 century. The American Board of Commissioners 
 for Foreign Missions (Boston) was established in 
 1810, and many Presbyterian churches contrib- 
 uted through it their gifts for general mission work 
 in foreign lands. In 1817 the General Assembly 
 resolved to enter itself upon foreign mission work, 
 and founded, in conjunction with the Reformed 
 Dutch and the Associate Reformed Churches, the 
 United Foreign Missionary Society, located in 
 New York, but this society in 1826 was consoli- 
 dated with the American Board. The General 
 Assembly of 1838, however, deeming it best for 
 the Church to control her own mission work, 
 established the Presbyterian Board of Foreign 
 Missions, and this Board has been greatly 
 prospered in all its undertakings and witnesses 
 to-day for Christ all round the world. 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 
 
 Another important feature of the growth of the 
 Church during this period was the organization 
 of the Board of Education. This step was the 
 natural outgrowth of the policy which established 
 in 1812 a theological seminary. The Presbyterian 
 [53] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 ' Church and education have an elective affinity 
 each for the other. Her early leaders were nearly 
 all thoroughly educated men, Denton, for in- 
 stance, being a student of Cambridge University, 
 England; Makemie, of Glasgow University, 
 Scotland; Andrews, of Harvard College, Massa- 
 chusetts; and Dickinson, of Yale College, Con- 
 
 > necticut. Further, the Church has always main- 
 tained a high standard of ministerial qualifica- 
 
 ^ tions. True, this standard has been twice a cause 
 of schism — in 1745 and in 1810 — but the Church 
 has never lowered her requirements in response 
 to demands from any quarter. Believing an 
 educated ministry to be her strength, she has 
 founded and maintained academies, colleges and 
 theological seminaries, and has also justly pro- 
 vided in part for the support, during long years of 
 study, of worthy candidates for the high office of 
 an "ambassador for Christ." This work as a 
 whole was formally entrusted in 1819 to the Board 
 of Education, and through it as an instrument, 
 many are *'the winners of souls" who have been 
 prepared for the service to which the Master called 
 them. 
 
 54 
 
VI 
 
 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL DIVISION, 
 
 . 1835-1869 
 
 OLD AND NEW SCHOOL 
 
 About the year 1825 the peace of the Church 
 began seriously to be disturbed by controversies 
 respecting the Plan of Union. Against the plan 
 an increasing protest was made by many persons 
 from year to year. In 1827 the right to vote in the 
 Assembly was taken from the delegates of the 
 Congregational Associations, and by 1830 their 
 representation therein ceased. In 1826 a protest 
 was entered on the minutes of the Assembly, 
 signed by forty-eight persons, objecting to the 
 reception, as commissioners, of committeemen 
 from mixed churches which had Presbyterian 
 pastors, and in 1832 the feeling that the presence 
 of such persons in the Assembly as members was 
 not warranted by the Constitution had become so 
 strong, that formal resolutions were presented 
 against the practice and passed by a considerable 
 majority. In addition to questions constitutional 
 in their nature, there were also questions of policy 
 which forced themselves upon the Church. The 
 contributions of many of the churches for home 
 mission objects were made to the American 
 Home Missionary Society. The contributions to 
 [551 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 foreign missions were made to the American 
 Board. A large portion of the Church contended 
 that the time had come for the conduct by 
 strictly denominational agencies of all evangelistic 
 work, and the Pittsburgh Synod in 1831 consti- 
 tuted itself as the Western Foreign Missionary 
 Society. Those opposed to the estabhshment of 
 denominational agencies belonged to the party 
 known as the *'New School" ; those who advocated 
 it, to the "Old School." Doctrinal and other ques- 
 tions were also to a considerable extent raised in 
 the controversy. The best authorities, however, 
 are of the opinion that the main issues which 
 divided the Church, were those relating to consti- 
 tutional law and to general missionary policy. 
 This view is substantiated not only by a study of 
 the history of the Church for fifteen years preced- 
 ing the great schism, but also by the fact that, 
 when, after thirty years, it was proposed to unite 
 the long-separated branches of the Church, doc- 
 trinal differences, though in some particulars as 
 marked in 1867 as in 1837, did not suffice to pre- 
 vent reunion. The acts of the Assembly of 1837 
 are also a part of the e\adence of the correct- 
 ness of this position. The Assembly first of 
 all, on May 23, by a vote of one hundred and 
 forty-three to one hundred and ten, abrogated 
 the Plan of Union with the General Association 
 of Connecticut. On June 1 it passed a reso- 
 lution "that by the operation of the abrogation 
 [56] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 of the Plan of Union of 1801 the Synod of the 
 Western Reserve is hereby declared to be no 
 longer a part of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States of America." This action was 
 followed successively by resolutions against the 
 American Home Missionary Society and the 
 American Education Society, by the excision of 
 the Synods of Utica, Geneva and Genesee, and 
 by the establishment of the Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions. When the Assembly of 1838 
 met, the "New School" commissioners protested 
 against the exclusion of the delegates from the 
 four exscinded Synods, organized an Assembly of 
 their own in the presence of the sitting Assembly, 
 and then witlidrew from the house. The matters 
 at issue between the Schools were referred to the 
 civil courts for settlement. The first decision 
 was in favor of the New School, but the case on 
 appeal was decided in favor of the Old School. 
 By the latter decision the Old School Assembly 
 became legally the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 PROGRESS DURING DIVISION 
 
 Into the history of the divided branches of the 
 Church we cannot enter at length. Both branches 
 grew slowly, but steadily; both were benefited by 
 revivals of religion at intervals — notably, the 
 revival of 1857; and both made progress in the 
 organization of their own benevolent work. 
 [571 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 As early as 1852 the New School Assembly be- 
 gan to appoint committees for the receipt and 
 control of the benevolent contributions from the 
 churches, and in 1862 it constituted the Presby- 
 terian Committee of Home Missions. 
 
 THE PUBLICATION CAUSE 
 In 1838 the Old School Assembly established 
 ' the Board of Publication, and in 1852 the New 
 School Assembly committed the same work to a 
 committee. This agency of the Church is now 
 second to none in importance and usefulness. 
 The habitual thought of a people is largely shaped 
 
 >> by the character of its reading. Great is the need, 
 therefore, that Christian thought shall through 
 the printed page reach and influence the mind of 
 
 ■ the nation. The dissemination of a religious 
 literature was at first the only province of this 
 Board, but its work has been providentially and 
 greatly enlarged by the wonderful development of 
 the Church's Sabbath-school interests. The chil- 
 dren of the Church are now the special con- 
 stituency of this agency, and its name was accord- 
 ingly changed by the General Assembly, in 1887, 
 to *'The Presbyterian Board of Publication and 
 Sabbath School Work." 
 
 THE CHURCH ERECTION FUND 
 The Board of the Church Erection Fund was 
 first established as an organization in 1844 (O. S.) 
 and in 1854 (N. S.). This Board has charge of 
 
 [58] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 the work of erecting church buildings and parson- 
 ages in feeble congregations. The aid it has given 
 in the conservation of new churches, through the 
 erection of church edifices, thus sustaining them 
 in weakness until they attain to strength, can- 
 not be overestimated. 
 
 MINISTERIAL RELIEF 
 
 The cause of ministerial relief was committed 
 by the Old School General Assembly to a Board 
 in 1855; its beginnings, however, can be traced 
 back to 1719, when the General Synod voted from 
 its fund a sum of money for the widow of Rev. 
 John Wilson. In 1755 the Synod of Philadelphia 
 established the corporation known as "The 
 Widows' Fund"; the action of the General 
 Assembly of 1855, therefore, simply gave organic 
 shape to a form of public and private benevolence 
 long existent. Deeply impressed with a sense of 
 the obligations resting upon the Church, with 
 regard to its disabled ministers and the widows 
 and orphans of deceased ministers, the Assembly 
 of 1887 recommended the raising by the Church of 
 a "Centenary Fund" of one million dollars, to be 
 added to the permanent fund of the Board 
 ($365,538), the interest of which was annually to 
 be devoted to the relief of the Church's disabled 
 veterans and their families. This fund, when 
 completed in 1889, added immediately to the 
 Board's endowments, the sum of $605,000. 
 [591 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 MISSIONS TO FREEDMEN 
 
 The mission work among the colored people in 
 this country is by no means of recent date. At the 
 beginning of the century the General Assembly 
 adopted measures with a view to their evangeliza- 
 tion. Ministers in Virginia, North Carolina, 
 Georgia, Tennessee and other southern states 
 gave much time, labor and money to the preaching 
 of the gospel to the slaves, and at the opening of 
 ^ the Civil War there were some 12,000 colored 
 /communicants in churches under the Assembly's 
 ^care. Special effort, however, was put forth by 
 •the Church for the Freedmen, when victory 
 crowned the arms of the republic. The two 
 branches organized each a committee to take 
 charge of the work— the New School in 1865, and 
 the Old School in 1866. In 1882 this united 
 
 ♦ committee was erected into the Board of Missions 
 
 • for Freedmen. 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH SOUTH 
 
 The progress of the two branches of the Church 
 was checked by disruption. The New School 
 Assembly of 1857 took strong ground in opposi- 
 tion to slavery, as a result of which several South- 
 ern Presbyteries withdrew, and organized the 
 United Synod of the Presbyterian Church. This 
 body in 1863 formed a union with the body now 
 known as the "Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States." 
 
 [60] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 In May, 1861, the Old School Assembly met at 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with but thirteen 
 commissioners present from the states which had 
 seceded from the Union. Dr. Gardiner Spring, a 
 commissioner from the Presbytery of New York, 
 offered resolutions recommending a day of prayer, 
 professing loyalty to the Federal government, and 
 declaring it a duty to support that government 
 and preserve the Union. These resolutions were 
 passed by a vote of one hundred and fifty -six to 
 sixty-six, the minority, however, simply protest- 
 ing against the Assembly's acting upon political 
 issues and determining questions of civil alle- 
 giance. The "Spring Resolutions" were the alleged *■ 
 reason for the organization of the "Presbyterian 
 Church in the Confederate States of America," 
 which met first in General Assembly at Augusta, • 
 Georgia, December 4, 1861, was enlarged by union 
 in 1863 with the United Synod, upon the cessation 
 of hostilities in 1865 took the name of the *'Pres- • 
 byterian Church in the United States," and in f 
 1886 formally celebrated its quarter centennial. 
 Its numbers were increased in 1869 by the adher- 
 ence of that part of the Synod of Kentucky which 
 by "Declaration and Testimony," protested in 
 1867 against the action of the Old School General 
 Assembly with regard to the ministers and mem- 
 bers of the Church South, and in 1874, for the 
 same reason, by the accession of part of the Synod 
 of Missouri. These additions increased the mem- 
 [61] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 bership by over twenty thousand. The strength 
 
 of this Church in 1916 was 1861 ministers, 3437 
 ' churches and 348,223 communicants. The Pres- 
 ^ byterian Church, U. S. A., had in 1916 "within the 
 
 same territory 1713 ministers, 2372 churches, 
 
 and 209,939 communicants. 
 
 im 
 
VII 
 REUNION AND ADVANCE, 1870-1900 
 
 MOVEMENT TOWARD UNION 
 
 Correspondence between the "Old School" and 
 "New School" General Assemblies was established 
 as early as 1862, under the pressure of a widely 
 extended and growing fraternal feeling. The two > 
 Assemblies met in St. Louis in 1866, and partook • 
 together of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. • 
 Committees of conference with a view to union 
 were appointed the same year, and in 1867 a 
 Presbyterian national convention held in Phila- 
 delphia, Pennsylvania, gave a powerful impulse 
 to the reunion movement. The report of the 
 committees of conference, though adopted by both 
 the Assemblies of 1868, was rejected by a decided 
 majority of the Old School Presbyteries, and 
 reunion, as a result, was consummated on the 
 basis of the "Standards pure and simple," 
 November 12, 1869, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 
 Article II of the Plan of Union, containing this i 
 basis, reads as follows: "The Reunion shall be 
 effected on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis 
 of our common standards; the Scriptures of thei 
 Old and New Testaments shall be acknowledged 
 to be the inspired word of God, and the only 
 infaUible rule of faith and practice; the Confes- ^ 
 sion of Faith shall continue to be sincerely received 
 
 [631 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 and adopted as containing the system of doctrine 
 ' taught in the Holy Scriptures; and the Govern- 
 ment and Disciphne of the Presbyterian Church 
 in the United States shall be approved as con- 
 taining the principles and rules of our polity." 
 
 In connection with Reunion a memorial fund 
 was raised, the amount of which was reported as 
 being $7,883,983.85. It w^as mainly expended in 
 paying church debts, in endowing colleges and in 
 erecting new houses of worship. 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY OF 1891 
 Since the Reunion of 1869, the Church has made 
 steady progress along all lines, and its harmony has 
 been seriously threatened only by controversy 
 ' (1891-1894), as to the sources of authority in 
 ^ religion, and the authority and credibility of Holy 
 • Scripture, a controversy which terminated in the 
 adoption by the General Assembly, at Minnea- 
 polis, Minnesota, in 1899, of a unanimous deliver- 
 ance affirming the loyalty of the Church to its 
 historic views on these subjects. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 The progress of the Church in the regions be- 
 yond the Mississippi has been notable from their 
 earliest occupation, and was stimulated by the 
 Reunion. The work of Home Missions usually 
 kept step with the advance of population, and the 
 organization of churches was carried forward in a 
 most effective manner. This progress is shown 
 164] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 in part, before and after 1869, by the dates of the 
 erection of certain Synods of the West, as follows 
 Wisconsin, 1851; Iowa, 1852; Minnesota, 1858 
 Kansas, 1869; Nebraska, 1874; Texas, 1878 
 Dakota, 1884; South Dakota and North Dakota, 
 1888; Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, 1895. 
 
 THE PACIFIC COAST AND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 
 The Church on the Pacific Coast began with the 
 mission work of Marcus Whitman, M. D., in 
 Oregon, and by the organization of the church at 
 Wai-ye-lat-poo (Kamiah) in 1838. Whitman 
 saved the far Northwest to the United States, and 
 laid the foundations of Christian work in two great 
 Synods. Church work in California followed 
 promptly upon the acquisition of territory from 
 Mexico, and its settlement in 1849. The Synod 
 of the Pacific, now California, was established in 
 1852, and included the entire Pacific Coast within 
 its jurisdiction. The Synod of Alta California, 
 w^as established in 1856, and was consolidated with 
 its sister Synod in 1870. In 1876, the Synod of 
 Columbia (now Oregon), was erected, and in 1890, 
 that of Washington. In the adjoining Rocky 
 Mountain regions the dates of the establishment 
 of the Synods were: Colorado, 1871, Utah, 1883; 
 New Mexico, 1889; Montana, 1893; Idaho, 
 1909; and Arizona, 1912. In 1881 the great 
 majority of the Synods were consolidated upon 
 the principle of conforming their boundaries to 
 [G5] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 the boundaries of the states in which they were 
 
 located. 
 
 THE PROGRESS, 1875-1900 
 
 Other important events in the history of the 
 Church during the closing half of the nineteenth 
 century were the following: 
 
 In 1875 the General Assembly entered into the 
 "Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout 
 the World holding the Presley terian System," 
 composed of about ninety national and denomina- 
 tional Churches located on all the continents, and 
 having in 1916 a total of 35,000,000 of adherents. 
 In 1881 the important work of temperance reform 
 was entrusted to the Committee on Temperance, 
 and this committee was made a Board in 1912. 
 The establishment of the Board of Aid for Colleges 
 and Academies, in 1883, was caused by the demands 
 of the West for institutions of the higher educa- 
 tion. This Board is now entitled the College 
 Board. In 1888 the Centennial of the General 
 Assembly was jointly celebrated in Philadelphia, 
 Pennsylvania, by the Churches South and North, 
 and a Centenary Fund of $605,000 was raised, 
 which was added, as elsewhere stated, to the En- 
 dowment Fund of the Board of Ministerial Relief. 
 Correspondence between the two General Assem- 
 bhes, of the United States of America and of the 
 United States (South), was first brought about in 
 1882. Plans of cooperation between the Churches 
 have also been adopted from time to time. 
 [661 
 
VIII 
 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 THE NEW EVANGELISM 
 
 As the twentieth century opened, the Church 
 began to organize for an advance in all its depart- 
 ments of work. The Assembly's Committee on 
 the Twentieth Century Fund by concerted effort 
 brought about a decided increase in contributions 
 for church support, and also for missions and 
 benevolence, an increase which has continued 
 until the present time. Realizing that the great- 
 est asset and the supreme test of a Christian 
 Church is its possession of evangelistic power, the 
 General Assembly established, in 1901, the Evan- 
 gehstic Committee, through whose efforts under 
 God's blessing, a decided uphft has been given to 
 spiritual conditions, not only within the Presby- 
 terian, but also among many other denominations. 
 As evidence of the value of this evangelistic move- 
 ment the number of persons added to the con- 
 gregations on confession of faith was more than 
 doubled between 1899 and 1916. It is to be 
 remembered in the words of Benjamin Harrison, 
 President of the United States, that the Presby- 
 terian Church "though it has made no boast or 
 shout has been an aggressive church, has been a 
 missionary Church from the beginning." 
 [671 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN REUNION 
 
 Believing that the Churches in the United 
 States of the Presbyterian family should be 
 
 • brought closer together, in 1903 the General 
 Assembly appointed a Committee on Church 
 Cooperation and Union, as a result of whose activ- 
 
 -y ity, terms of union were framed (1904-1905) 
 between the Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America and the Cumberland Presby- 
 
 ' terian Church. This union was acomplished on 
 the basis of the Westminster Standards as revised 
 in 1903, at the respective General Assemblies held 
 at Des Moines, Iowa, and Decatur, Illinois, in 
 
 ' 1906. There has been considerable litigation in 
 connection with this union, but in any event the 
 additions through it to the Presbyterian Church 
 in the United States of America amounted to 
 about 1200 ministers, 1800 churches and 90,000 
 
 /^communicants. It is noteworthy that this Re- 
 union of Churches was the third effected in the 
 history of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America on the basis of the Standards, 
 the other two being the Reunions of 1758 and 
 
 / 1869. The Westminster Standards are a living 
 power in relation to American Presbyterian 
 
 • Churches. One reason for this is the fact that 
 they are the only ecumenical Standards of 
 Doctrine ever adopted by the religious repre- 
 sentatives of English-speaking evangelical Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 [68] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 One of the results of the union with the Cumber- 
 land Church, was the establishment of two Synods, 
 additional to Atlantic (1868), and Catawba 
 (1887), composed only of ministers and congrega- 
 tions of colored people, namely, Canadian and 
 East Tennessee. The race and nationality prin- 
 ciple in Church organization was also recognized 
 in 1912 by the erection of the West German Synod. 
 This principle had been accepted, however, in 
 colonial times in the Welsh, the German, and the 
 Colored Churches in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
 Maryland, and later on down to the present time 
 in churches of these and other nationalities, 
 wherever needed. 
 
 GENERAL CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP 
 
 The Committee on Church Cooperation and 
 Union was also instrumental in establishing the 
 "Council of Reformed Churches in the United 
 States holding the Presbyterian System," organ- 
 ized in 1907 through the adoption of "Articles of 
 Agreement," and bringing into closer relations 
 seven of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches 
 in the country. The Church through it was, 
 in addition, a factor in the organization in 
 December, 1908, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, -• 
 of the "Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
 in America," composed of thirty denominations, ^ 
 having about 17,000,000 communicants, and 
 representing a majority of the people of the 
 [69] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 United States. The Church, further, has always 
 given its cordial support to interdenominational 
 organizations such as the American Bible Society, 
 the Lord's Day Alliance of the United States, and 
 the United Society of Christian Endeavor. It 
 fellowships freely with all evangelical Christians, 
 and recognizes fully the rights of conscience of all 
 persons. 
 
 THE REVISION OF THE CONFESSION 
 
 The Confession of Faith, which had been 
 amended since 1788 only in 1887, as elsewhere 
 indicated, was in 1903 revised to a considerable 
 extent. The amendments were in chapters x, xvi, 
 xxii, and xxv, a Declaratory Statement also was 
 adopted as to chapters iii and x, denying that 
 they were fatalistic in teaching, and chapters 
 xxxiv and xxxv were added to the Confession, 
 respectively entitled, "Of the Holy Spirit," and 
 "Of the Love of God and Missions." This 
 revision was for the express purpose of the dis- 
 avowal of certain improper inferences drawn by 
 persons outside the Church, as to its doctrines on 
 God's eternal decree, the love of God for all man- 
 kind, and his readiness to bestow his saving grace 
 on all who seek it. The Church also officially 
 declared that all persons dying in infancy are 
 included in the election of grace, and are regener- 
 ated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, 
 "who works when and where and how he pleases." 
 [70] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 One year prior to the Revision of 1902, the Gener- 
 al Assembly adopted unanimously a "Brief State- 
 ment of the Reformed Faith, for a better under- 
 standing of our doctrinal beliefs." While not a 
 Standard of Doctrine, the Statement has decided 
 value as explanatory of the Confession. 
 
 In addition to the brief statement of the 
 Reformed Faith the General Assembly also ap- 
 proved in 1906 a Book of Comntbn Worship pre- 
 pared by a committee appointed by the Assembly, 
 and distinctly declared to be sc^ely for voluntary 
 use. 
 
 THE SUPPLY OF VACANJ CHURCHES 
 
 The related questions of the employment of 
 unemployed ministers and the supply of vacant 
 churches have constituted for more than a cen- 
 tury one of the great problems of the Church. 
 In 1912 the General Assembly and the Presby- 
 teries adopted a constitutional provision author- 
 izing the General Assembly to appoint a Perman- 
 ent Committee to endeavor to solve the problem. 
 The committee was appointed, and has made 
 considerable progress in this most important 
 movement. 
 
 MEN'S WORK AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 The administrative or governmental standards 
 have been frequently amended since 1788, and 
 during recent years provision has been made for 
 more efficient and united work by church mem- 
 
 [71] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 bers tliroiigh the recognition of their right to 
 estabhsh voluntary organizations under church 
 supervision, as provided in chapter xxiii of the 
 Form of Government, entitled "Of the Organiza- 
 tions of the Church." This trend to expansion 
 of service found expression in the organization in 
 1906 of the Presbyterian Brotherhood, now the 
 Permanent Committee on Men's Work. It found 
 important expression also in the establishment 
 of the Executive Commission of the General 
 Assembly in 1908, and by the adoption in 1915 of 
 chapter xxvi of the Form of Government, entitled 
 "Of Executive Commissions." This chapter 
 authorizes each Church judicatory, from the 
 Presbytery up to the Assembly, to use this form of 
 organization for administrative service between 
 the regular meetings of the appointing bodies, and 
 the Executive Commission of the General Assem- 
 bly has brought into unity the work of the several 
 missionary and benevolent Boards. It also 
 reports annually a budget for the Boards and for 
 the Assembly. In addition to the Executive 
 Commission, the Church established in 1907 
 through the adoption of chapter xiii of the 
 Book of Discipline, permanent judicial commis- 
 sions for the several judicatories. 
 
 THE MINISTERIAL SUSTENTATION FUND 
 
 The Ministerial Sustentation Fund was estab- 
 Kshed in 1906, in order to make provision for 
 
 [72] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 pensions for ministers who preferred to contribute 
 toward their own support in old age, and who 
 believed that ministers were entitled to pensions 
 on the basis of service rendered. This fund was 
 chartered as a Board, in 1909, and in 1912 was 
 combined with the Board of Relief. Under the 
 joint auspices of the two Boards a movement was 
 set on foot in 1913 to raise $10,000,000 to provide 
 for the needs of ministers and their famihes, when 
 retired through infirmities either of disease or of 
 old age. 
 
 THE PLACE OF WOMAN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 The Presbyterian Church has always main- 
 tained the rights of woman in the Church in 
 connection with administrative affairs. Women 
 members have usually voted for pastors and other 
 church officers. Women's societies for charitable 
 purposes have always existed, and Women's 
 Foreign Mission societies were organized as early 
 as 1870. There are now in existence six of these 
 organizations, all in connection with the Board 
 of Foreign Missions, and bringing to this great 
 cause the earnestness and efficiency of more than 
 three fifths of the membership of the Churches. 
 The Woman's Committee of Home Missions was 
 organized in 1879, and was incorporated as a 
 Board in 1915. Its work is complementary to 
 that of the Board of Home Missions. There is 
 also a Woman's department of the Freedmen's 
 [731 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 Board. The last step taken by the Church in 
 connection with the Christian service of woman, 
 was the adoption, in 1915, of a provision in the 
 Form of Government, authorizing the election 
 and setting apart of deaconesses in each of the 
 churches, these officers to be under the direction 
 of the Session. 
 
 THE BOARDS AND AGENCIES, 1916 
 
 The general work of the Presbyterian Church 
 in lines of Christian activity has been conducted 
 from the beginning either under the supervision 
 of the General Presbytery, the General Synod, or 
 the General Assembly. Under its power "to 
 superintend the concerns of the whole Church," 
 the Assembly, from time to time, as stated else- 
 where, has appointed various Agencies for the 
 promotion of the general interests of the Kingdom 
 of Christ, some of them temporary. Those 
 which are permanent, for convenience of refer- 
 ence, are all named below, the years given after 
 the names being the dates in each case of their 
 original establishment. 
 
 Home Missions 1816 
 
 Education 1819 
 
 Foreign Missions 1837 
 
 Publication 1838 
 
 Church Erection 1844 
 
 Ministerial Relief 1855 
 
 Freedmen 1865 
 
 Woman's Foreign Missions 1870 
 
 Woman's Home Missions 1879 
 
 [741 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Temperance 1881 
 
 Colleges 1883 
 
 Evangelism 1901 
 
 Men's Work 1906 
 
 THE PERSISTENT ADVANCE 
 
 It is interesting to recall that the adminis- 
 trative affairs of the Church of Scotland at the 
 time of the Reformation were handled by duly 
 appointed committees known as "Tables." Rep- 
 resentative government, whether in Church or 
 State, works through responsible agencies under 
 the control of legislative bodies. A brief account^ 
 of the present work of the American agencies is 
 of interest. During the fiscal year ending March 
 31, 1916, the work of Home Missions under the 
 Board of that name, aided 1912 churches, and had 
 in the field 1854 missionaries. In addition, 
 the work carried on by the Synods showed 
 that under synodical Home Missions, 3620 
 churches and missions were aided, and 2558 mis- 
 sionary workers were employed. The Woman's 
 Board of Home Missions, operated largely along 
 special lines, chiefly educational, is sustained 
 by the women and young people of the Church, 
 and has connected with it about 14,000 socie- 
 ties of one kind and another. The work of 
 the Board of Foreign Missions was carried 
 on, in the same year, by 27 general missions, 
 162 stations, 1330 missionaries, 6097 native 
 helpers, and 914 fully organized churches with 
 [751 
 
•A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 148,688 communicants. Its agencies also printed 
 32,446,850 pages of Christian truth in over 
 twenty languages, and conducted 172 hospitals 
 and dispensaries. The Women's Boards of For- 
 eign Missions cooperating with the General 
 Board are sustained by many societies in like 
 manner as the Woman's Home Mission Board. 
 
 The Board of Education had under its care in 
 1916, 831 candidates for the ministry and is 
 active in providing for the spiritual welfare of 
 students in state universities and other institu- 
 tions, and also for the supervision of training 
 schools for lay workers, whose employment is an 
 increasing feature of the activity of the Christian 
 Churches in the twentieth century. 
 
 The Board of Publication and Sabbath School 
 Work employed 123 missionaries who organized 
 during the year, 843 schools, and in addition pro- 
 vided a Sabbath-school literature of great bulk and 
 greater value. The Board of Church Erection 
 enabled many congregations needing aid to erect 
 adequate Church edifices, and since 1845 has thus 
 aided 10,866 congregations. The Board of Relief 
 had under its care, in 1916, 1555 persons, men, 
 women and children and is heartily supported 
 by the Church in its effort for larger provision for 
 all its worthy objects. The Board of Missions for 
 Freedmen supervised 438 churches and mission 
 stations, with 27,916 communicants, and 24,446 
 Sabbath-school pupils. It also aided in sus- 
 [76] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 taining 272 ministers and 494 teachers. The 
 College Board cooperated in 1916 with 46 educa- 
 tional institutions organically connected with the 
 Presbyterian Church, and with 18 which were 
 under Presbyterian influence. The Board acts 
 upon the basis that Christian colleges furnish the 
 greater number of Christian workers. The Per- 
 manent Committees on Evangelism, and on 
 Men's Work, are comparatively new, and their^ 
 work, while prosperous, is largely awaiting a 
 development commensurate with the spiritual 
 resources of the Church. 
 
 The great progress made in beneficence is shown 
 by the fact that in 1789 the total contributions of 
 the Church for missionary and charitable pur- 
 poses were $852.00, and in 1916, $7,818,297.00. 
 The total amount contributed the latter year for 
 congregational expenses was $20,109,322.00 and 
 the total of all contributions for all purposes was 
 $28,122,426.00. 
 
 OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS 
 
 The official publications of the Church are the 
 Records of the General Presbytery, 1706-1716, of 
 the General Synod, 1717-1788, and of the General 
 Assembly 1789-1916, each in printed form. They 
 are the most complete ecclesiastical records in the 
 United States of America. The Minutes of the 
 General Assembly and the Reports of the Boards 
 are now both issued annually. 
 [77] 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 GROWTH, 1640-1916 
 
 The growth of the Presbyterian Church, during 
 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and since, 
 is notable, as appears from the figures of the com- 
 parative table herewith given. 
 
 Years 
 
 Ministers 
 
 Churches 
 
 Communicants 
 
 1640 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 500 
 
 1690 
 
 10 
 
 18 
 
 1,500 
 
 1705 
 
 12 
 
 22 
 
 2,000 
 
 1717 
 
 19 
 
 40 
 
 3,000 
 
 1758 
 
 98 
 
 200 
 
 10,000 
 
 1789 
 
 177 
 
 431 
 
 18,000 
 
 1800 
 
 189 
 
 449 
 
 20,000 
 
 1837 
 
 2,140 
 
 2,965 
 
 220,557 
 
 1870 
 
 4,238 
 
 4,526 
 
 446,561 
 
 1880 
 
 5,044 
 
 5,489 
 
 578,671 
 
 1890 
 
 6,158 
 
 6,894 
 
 775,903 
 
 1900 
 
 7,467 
 
 7,750 
 
 1,007,689 
 
 1910 
 
 9,073 
 
 10,011 
 
 1,339,000 
 
 1915 
 
 9,685 
 
 9,996 
 
 1,513,240 
 
 1916 
 
 9,739 
 
 9,953 
 
 1,560,009 
 
 While the population of the country has in- 
 creased about twenty times since 1800, the mem- 
 bership of the Church has increased about seventy- 
 eight times in the same period, and the total 
 additions on profession of faith during the century 
 ending with 1916, appear to have been about 
 3,500,000. What a stimulus for future sustained 
 spiritual advance there is in this record! 
 
 PRIVILEGES AND DUTIES 
 
 The history of the Church in all its course is 
 one of moral power and spiritual uplift. Its 
 
 [78] 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Home Missions have been continuously upon 
 the frontier of the advancing civilization of the 
 American people. Its ministers and congrega- 
 tions have been essential factors in securing the 
 moral and spiritual as well as the material welfare 
 of the Republic. Its influence has been decided 
 upon the political interests of the land, for both 
 the Church and the nation are direct products 
 of the great Protestant Reformation. The Church 
 has furnished Revolutionary leaders such as 
 John Witherspoon, and also Presidents of the 
 United States, such as Andrew Jackson, Abraham 
 Lincoln, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, 
 Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. In 
 heathen lands the Church has exerted a quiet 
 but mighty influence in elevating the stand- 
 dards of morality, in sanctifying the family rela- 
 tion, in introducing the element of fraternity, 
 and above all in bringing to bear upon great 
 masses of men and women the divine power which 
 accompanies the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether 
 at home or abroad, the Church has been, under 
 God, in all the relations in which human beings 
 stand each to the other, and in all the aspirations 
 of humanity, both for this world and the world 
 to come, a savor of life unto life. 
 
 The Church, also, as its history evidences, 
 
 is strong in its Scriptural creed and its popular 
 
 sympathies; strong also in its relation to the 
 
 history and development of the land in which 
 
 [791 
 
A CONCISE HISTORY OF 
 
 God has placed it; strong, in addition, in its hold 
 upon the influential elements in the diverse popu- 
 lation of the Republic; strong, further, in num- 
 bers and in the material, intellectual and moral 
 resources under its control. It possesses noble 
 principles, historic prestige, far-reaching in- 
 fluence, multiplied resources. For the Presby- 
 terian Church, America is but another name for 
 opportunity, and if it would rise in the present 
 to the level of its providential privileges, then, 
 with all charity toward other denominations of 
 Christians, it should devote its great resources, 
 both of men and means, to the wide dissemination 
 of the truths which it maintains, and for the 
 largest possible development of its own institu- 
 tions. Loyalty to the Presbyterian system in- 
 volves loyalty to its widespread agencies; de- 
 mands a persistent, resolute, aggressive movement 
 for the meeting in full, along denominational 
 lines, of denominational responsibilities. It is 
 along these lines that the Presbyterian Church 
 will vindicate to the world its right to exist as a 
 Church, that it will evidence clearly that it has a 
 mission in the earth, that it will rise to the full 
 height both of opportunity and responsibility, and 
 that it will effectively aid in the extension and 
 final victory of the Redeemer's Kingdom. 
 
 [80 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abingdon Presbytery, 43. 
 
 Adopting Act, 23. 
 
 .\lexander, Archibald, 49. 
 
 Alliance of Reformed 
 Churches, 66. 
 
 American Board, Foreign 
 Missions, 53. 
 
 American Home Missionary 
 Society, 55. 
 
 American Independence, 33, 
 41. 
 
 Andrews, Jedidiah, 18, 20, 21, 
 26, 54. 
 
 Annapolis, 10. 
 
 Atlantic Siymod, 69. 
 
 Aubm-n Seminary, 49. 
 
 Associate Reformed Presby- 
 terian Synod, 8. 
 
 Baltimore Presbytery, 43. 
 Bancroft, George, 42. 
 Baptism, infant, 12. 
 Barbadoes Company, 18. 
 Baxter, Richard, 10. 
 Beale, Capt. Ninian, 10. 
 Biddle University, 49. 
 Bloomfield Seminary, 49. 
 Boards, names and dates, 75. 
 Bolton, Robert, 9. 
 Boudinot, Elias, 41. 
 Boyd, John, 20. 
 Brainerd, David and John, 
 
 50. 
 Brewster, William, 11. 
 
 Caledonia Presbytery, 14. 
 
 Calendar, change in, 19. 
 
 California, Q5. 
 
 Camp meetings, 48. 
 
 Carlisle Presbytery, 43. 
 
 Carolinas, Synod of, 43. 
 
 Catechisms, 23, 24, 35. 
 
 Centenary Fund, 66. 
 
 Christian colleges, 77. 
 
 Cliristian Reformed Church, 
 7. 
 
 Church Cooperation and 
 Union, Committee, 68, 69. 
 
 Church Erection Board, 58, 
 76. 
 
 Church, Growth of, 29, 50, 
 51, 65, 78. 
 
 Church Government, Prin- 
 ciples of, 37. 
 
 Church, Independence of, 24, 
 
 Church membership, terms 
 of, 39. 
 
 Church and State, 24, 25, 35. 
 
 Civil Magistrate, 35. 
 
 College Board, 66. 
 
 Confession of Faith, 8, 23, 
 24, 29, 35, 41, 64, 68, 70. 
 
 Congregational Associations, 
 55. 
 
 Congregationalism, 24, 32, 
 34. 
 
 Connecticut, State of, 12, 13, 
 24, 45. 
 
 Connecticut, General Associ- 
 ation, 32, 44, 46. 
 
 Constitution of church adopt- 
 ed, 34. 
 
 81 
 
INDEX 
 
 Constitution, Federal, in- 
 fluence on, 40. 
 
 Continental Congress, 33. 
 
 Cornbury, Lord, 17. 
 
 Council of Reformed 
 Churches, 69. 
 
 Covenanters, 17, 42. 
 
 Cumberland Presbyterian 
 Church, 8, 48. 
 
 Cumberland Presbytery, 48. 
 
 Darien, Isthmus of, 14. 
 
 Davies, Samuel, 20, 29. 
 
 Deaconess, office of, 74. 
 
 Declaration and Testimony, 
 61. 
 
 Denton, Richard, 11, 12, 54. 
 
 Decatur Assembly, 68. 
 
 Des Moines Assembly, 68. 
 
 Dickinson, Jonathan, 28, 54. 
 
 Divisions, 26, 27, 48, 56. 
 
 Doctrinal system, 36. 
 
 Dort, Canons of, 8. 
 
 Doughty, Francis, 10, 11, 17, 
 24. 
 
 Dubuque Seminary, 49. 
 
 Dutch Calvinists, 12. 
 
 Dutchess County, Presby- 
 tery, 30, 43. 
 
 Education, Board of, es- 
 tablished, 53, 54, 76. 
 
 Education, beginnings of, 31, 
 53. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 20. 
 
 Elizabeth, N. J., church, 13, 
 28. 
 
 Elizabeth River, Va., 9. 
 
 England, 9. 
 
 Episcopalians, 16, 17. 32, 34, 
 
 42. 
 Evan, David, 15. 
 Evangelistic Committee, 67, 
 
 77. 
 Executive Commissions, 72. 
 
 Fairfield, N. J., church, 13. 
 
 Fatalism, 70. 
 
 Federal Coimcil, churches, 
 
 69. 
 Federal Union, 41. 
 Foreign Missions, early work, 
 
 52, 53. 
 
 Foreign Missions, Board of, 
 
 53, 75. 
 
 Freedmen's Board, 60, 75. 
 French churches, 8, 14. 
 Freehold, N. J., church, 13. 
 
 Gardiner, John, 20. 
 
 General Assembly as judica- 
 tory, 38; basis of repre- 
 sentation, 43; relation to 
 Church, 44; the first, 43; 
 Centennial, 66. 
 
 Glasgow and Ayr, Synod of, 
 17. 
 
 Government, church, 37, 64. 
 
 Great Valley, Pa., Church of, 
 15. 
 
 Growth of Church, 29, 50, 
 51, 65, 78. 
 
 Hall, James, 50. 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 41. 
 Hampton, John, 20. 
 Hanover Presbytery, 29, 43. 
 Hartford North Association, 
 Declaration of, 45. 
 
 82 
 
INDEX 
 
 Harvard College, 18, 26. 
 Heidelberg Catechism, 9. 
 Hempstead, Long Island, 12. 
 Hill, Matthew, 10. 
 Hodge, Charles, 27. 
 Holland, 7. 
 Home Missions, Board of, 52, 
 
 58, 75. 
 Home Missions, beginnings 
 
 of, 50, 52. 
 Horton, Azariah, 52. 
 Huguenots, 8, 14, 42. 
 
 Infants, salvation of, 70. 
 Ireland, 11, 22. 
 
 Jamaica, N. Y., 12. 
 Judicial commissions, 72. 
 
 Kamiah, Church, Oregon, 65. 
 Kentucky, revival, 47. 
 Kentucky Seminary, 49. 
 
 Laggan Presbytery, 15. 
 Lane Seminary, 49. 
 Lewes Presbytery, 43. 
 Lexington Presbytery, 43. 
 Liberty, cixnl and religious, 
 
 16. 
 Lincoln University, 49. 
 Lindley, John, 51. 
 Log College, 26. 
 Londonderry, 17. 
 Long Island Presbytery, 21. 
 Londonderry Presbytery, 22. 
 Lord, Joseph, 14. 
 
 McCormick Seminary, 49. 
 MacNish, George, 20, 21. 
 
 Madison, James, 41. 
 Makemie, Francis, 11, 15, 
 
 17, 10, 20, 54. 
 Maryland, 10, 15. 
 Massachusetts, 24, 45. 
 Mecklenburgh Declaration, 
 
 33. 
 Membership, terms of, 39. 
 Memorial Fund, Reunion, 64. 
 Men's Work, Committee on, 
 
 71, 77. 
 Ministerial Qualifications, 
 
 standards of, 54. 
 Ministerial Relief, see Relief. 
 Ministerial Sustentation 
 
 Fund, 72. 
 Minneapolis Assembly, 64. 
 Mississippi territory, 50. 
 Mississippi valley, progress, 
 
 64. 
 
 Nantes, edict of, 14. 
 Neshaminy, 26. 
 New Amsterdam, 12. 
 Newark, N. J., church, 13. 
 New Brunswick Presbytery, 
 
 27, 43. 
 New Castle, Del., church, 13. 
 New Castle Presbytery, 21, 
 
 43. 
 New England, colonists in, 
 
 11. 
 New England, Presbyterians 
 
 in, 47. 
 New England, Synod, 22. 
 New Hampshire Association, 
 
 45. 
 New York, Presbytery, 43. 
 New York, Synod, 27, 63. 
 New York City, 17. 
 
 83 
 
INDEX 
 
 New York and New Jersey 
 
 Synod, 43. 
 North and South Carolina, 
 
 Presbyterians in, 13. 
 
 Old and New Side, 2G, 27, 29. 
 Old and New School, 5G, 63. 
 Omaha Seminary, 49. 
 Orange Presbytery, 30, 43. 
 Oregon, 65. 
 
 Pacific Coast, early missions, 
 65. 
 
 Pliiladelphia, City, 18; Pres- 
 bytery, 21, 43; first church 
 18; second church, 43; 
 Synod, 43. 
 
 Plan of Union, 32, 46, 55. 
 
 Plymouth Pilgrims, 11. 
 
 Presbyterian Church, South, 
 8. 60, 61, 66. 
 
 Presbyterianism, American, 
 origins, 7. 
 
 Presbytery, the first, 19. 
 
 Presbytery as a judicatory, 
 38. 
 
 Princeton College, 28. 
 
 Princeton Theological Sem- 
 inary, 48. 
 
 Privileges and Duties, 78. 
 
 Publication and Sabbath- 
 School Work, Board of, 58, 
 76; beginnings of, 31. 
 
 Publications, official, 77. 
 
 Puritans, 9, 10, 16, 42. 
 
 Redstone Presbytery, 43. 
 Rehoboth Church, 15. 
 Reformed (Dutch) Church in 
 America, 7. 
 
 Reformed (German) Church 
 in the U. S., 7. 
 
 Reformed faith, brief state- 
 ment, 71. 
 
 Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church, 8. 
 
 Relief and Sustentation, 
 Board, 54, 66, 76; Cen- 
 tenary Fund, 59; New 
 funds, 76. 
 
 Reunion, Old and New Sides, 
 29; Old and New Schools, 
 63; Cumberland, 68. 
 
 Reunion fund, 64. 
 
 Re\asion of Confession, 70. 
 
 Revivals, 26, 46, 47. 
 
 Revolution of 1776, 42. 
 
 Rice, David, 46, 47. 
 
 Robinson, John, 11, 12. 
 
 Rocky Mountains, 65 
 
 Rodgers, John, 43. 
 
 St. Louis Assembly, 63. 
 
 Salem Presbytery, 22. 
 
 San Francisco Seminary, 
 49. 
 
 Scotch-Irish, 15, 16. 
 
 Scotland, church of, 17, 75. 
 
 Session, Church, 38, 39. . 
 
 Settlements, first, 7. 
 
 Severn River, 10. 
 
 Slavery, 60. 
 
 Smith, William, 20. 
 
 Snow Hill Chiu-ch, 15. 
 
 Snow Hill Presbytery, 21. 
 
 Southold, N. Y., church, 13. 
 
 South Carolina Presbytery 
 43. 
 
 Spring, (rardiner, resolu- 
 tions, 61. 
 
 [84] 
 
INDEX 
 
 State and Church, relation 
 between, 24, 25, 35. 
 
 Stevens, William, 15, 
 
 Stobo, Archibald, 14. 
 
 Stoddard, James, 20. 
 
 Suffolk Presbytery, 43. 
 
 Synod, General, organized, 
 21; and American inde- 
 pendence, 33. 
 
 Synod, as judicatory, 38. 
 
 Taylor, Nathaniel, 20. 
 Temperance, Board of, 66. 
 Tennent, Gilbert and 
 
 WUliam, 26. 
 Theological Seminaries, 48. 
 Traill, William, 11. 
 Twentieth Century Fund 
 
 Committee, 67. 
 
 Ulster Presbyterians, 42. 
 Union. See Reunion. 
 Union Seminary, N. Y., 49. 
 Union Seminary, Va., 49. 
 United Presbyterian Church, 
 
 8. 
 United S\Tiod, 60. 
 United States, Constitution 
 
 of, 40; Presidents of, 79. 
 
 Vacancy and Supply Com- 
 mittee, 71. 
 
 Vermont, General Associa- 
 tion, 45. 
 Virginia, Synod of, 43. 
 
 Wandsworth Presbytery, 9. 
 Washington, George, 42. 
 Welsh Chm-ches, 8, 15, 21. 
 Western Foreign Missionary 
 
 Society, 56. 
 West German Synod, 69. 
 Westminster Standards, 23, 
 
 63, 68. 
 Whitaker, Alexander, 9. 
 ^^Tiitefield, George, 26, 27, 29. 
 WTiitman, Marcus, 65. 
 Williams, Roger, 24. 
 Wilson, John, 20. 
 Witherspoon, John, 30, 33, 
 
 41, 43, 79. 
 Woman, place in the church, 
 
 73. 
 Women's Boards, 73, 75. 
 Woodbridge, N. J., church, 
 
 13. 
 Worcester, Mass., 22. 
 Word of God, 37. 
 Worsliip, Directory of, 39; 
 
 Book of common, 71. 
 
 Yale College, 26. 
 Yard, Joseph, 20. 
 Yorkshire, England, 11. 
 Youngs, John, 13. 
 
 1851 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 200™ ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GENERAL SYNOD 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 IN THE U. S. A. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
 
 Dallas, Texas, May 18, 1917 
 
 BY 
 
 WM. HENRY ROBERTS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Stated Clerk of the General Assembly 
 
 Printed by order of the 
 General Assembly 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 
 1917 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE TWO HUNDREDTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY 
 
 THE Synod which was estabhshed at Phila- 
 delphia, Pennsylvania, in September, 1716, 
 by the General Presbytery, was, in a dis- 
 tinct and positive sense, the Synod of the Ameri- 
 can Presbyterian Church, for no other Presbyterian 
 Church then existed in the territory now included 
 within the United States of America. All other 
 Churches of the Presbyterian faith and order in 
 America are later developments. 
 
 As the governing body of the Church, the Synod 
 was, in many particulars, unique, and it is upon 
 these special features that emphasis will be laid 
 in this address. The principal facts of the 
 history are discussed in quite a number of volumes, 
 and have been dealt with recently in various 
 pubUcations, both in newspaper and book form. 
 
 It is important in connection wiith this celebra- 
 tion to note, first of all, that it is exactly one 
 hundred years since the Presbyterian Church in 
 the United States of America began, through the 
 General Assembly, active work in Louisiana and 
 other parts of the Southwest. Rev. Sylvester 
 Lamed was appointed as a missionary to the 
 189 1 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 Southwest by the General Assembly meeting at 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in May, 1817. As 
 was then the custom, the Assembly named the 
 missionaries directly. Mr. Larned is the forty- 
 second person in a list of forty-five appointed in 
 1817, and the record tells us that his appointment 
 was made * 'especially with a view to establish the 
 ministry of the gospel in the city of New Orleans; 
 and in traveling to that city, he will commence his 
 route from Detroit, pass through Vincennes, 
 Kaskaskia, and St. Louis." Mr. Larned was 
 installed as pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church of New Orleans in 1818 and died in 1820. 
 He was the first Presbyterian pastor of that 
 important center. 
 
 Great truly has been the growth of the Church 
 during the last hundred years, and large the bless- 
 ing which God has sent down upon the faithful 
 labors of those devoted missionaries who first car- 
 ried the gospel through the entire Southwest. Such 
 a one for instance as James Hall served on his 
 mission seven months and thirteen days, and 
 received eighty-six dollars for his support. It is 
 because of such lives of sacrificial labor that this 
 Assembly, the Hneal successor of the Synod of 
 1717, is privileged to meet in one of the principal 
 cities of the Southwest and to be the guest of 
 Churches which are loyal to the faith and tradi- 
 tions of the fathers. 
 
 The first feature to be emphasized in connection 
 
 [90] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 with the history of the General Synod is that it 
 was the product of a Christian Church born on 
 American soil. It was constituted by a Pres- 
 bytery which was self -organized. Its ministers, 
 it is true, had been ordained to their high calling 
 by various Church bodies in Scotland, in Ireland, 
 and in New England (there were two graduates 
 of Harvard), but no permission or authority for 
 the organization of the Presbytery was requested 
 from any existing ecclesiastical body. Ordinarily 
 speaking, it is true that the Reformed Churches 
 of Europe, notably the Church of Scotland, are 
 to be regarded as the sources of the influences 
 which produced the American Presbyterian 
 Church. In a vital sense, the historic Church of 
 Scotland is a mother to all the Presbyterian 
 Churches of the United States, and other Churches, 
 such as the Reformed Churches of Holland, 
 France, Germany, and England, may also be 
 regarded as standing in a parental relation to 
 them. But it is to be emphasized that the one 
 centrally organized body of believers which has 
 had the longest continuous existence on American 
 soil, was self -organized, ministers and ruling elders 
 of different particular churches coming together 
 for the purpose, filled with the desire to do their 
 duty as Christian men. The Synod, therefore, 
 represented in a distinct manner those tendencies 
 in modern life, both ecclesiastical and civil, which 
 have come to be designated by the word "Ameri- 
 [91] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 canism." That word, invented by John Wither- 
 spoon, stands for one thing — for the liberty of 
 Christians to organize for cooperative work. 
 Americans stand upon their own feet. 
 
 A second feature connected with the history 
 of the Synod is the fact that at its first meeting 
 it proceeded to organize the work of the 
 Church with a view to the future. The men 
 who constituted of their own volition both the 
 General Presbytery and the General Synod 
 were men of vision. They were mentally of 
 the folk who believe that where there is no 
 vision the people perish, and they therefore 
 began to lay foundations for a growing Church 
 in the midst of a people with a future. They 
 established in 1717 a fund for pious uses and 
 took steps to further the work of missions. 
 They also appointed every year an Executive 
 Commission with power. These acts were the 
 initial steps in organized benevolence. In 
 many other ways, as the records show, from 
 year to year, they evidenced by their acts that 
 they realized the importance of the trust which 
 had been committed to them of God. They 
 were men equal to the varying situations of 
 their lives, ready for any work which com- 
 mended itself to them and having the foresight 
 which is indispensable in connection with all 
 human affairs, if success is to crown earnest 
 and systematic effort. Above all other things, 
 [92] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 they were men who relied upon the divine guid- 
 ance, believing that God is, and that faith in 
 God, whatever the outward conditions, is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen. 
 
 A third feature of the history shows that the 
 Synod realized that the strength of a Christian 
 Church is its possession of a distinctive type of 
 Christian doctrine. From the beginning of the 
 organization of the American Presbyterian 
 Church, insistence was placed upon the fact 
 that the persons associated therein were in full 
 sympathy with the creeds of the Reformed 
 Churches throughout the world. The Synod 
 did not attempt to frame new standards of 
 doctrine, for they realized that they were part 
 of English-speaking Christendom, and that 
 Evangelical Christians generally had reached 
 a practically unanimous conclusion as to the 
 systematic form of Bible doctrine, in the 
 Standards framed in the Jerusalem Chamber, 
 Westminster Abbey, London, England, by the 
 Assembly of Divines in 1643-1648. The West- 
 minster Standards were not only Biblical but 
 also ecumenical in a true sense, and as such 
 were formally adopted at the meeting of the 
 Synod in 1729, and subscription thereto was 
 required from that year by all ministers and 
 licentiates. The members of Synod did this 
 of their own free will, and they did it to make 
 [93] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 clear that in doctrine as well as in practice the 
 American Presbyterian Church was a part of 
 that great divine force known as the Protestant 
 Reformation, which steadily had been reorganiz- 
 ing upon New Testament lines both the thought 
 and life of the Christian world. The Synod 
 established at Philadelphia in 1717 was one 
 result of Luther's work at Wittenberg in 1517. 
 The central thought of the Reformation was 
 and is the great doctrine of the sovereignty of 
 God's Word over human thought and life. 
 Creed and life are inseparable. Every intelli- 
 gent life is invariably the expression of some 
 sort of creed. And that creed is truest and 
 that life strongest which rests upon a sovereign 
 God, is instinct as a result with the divine life, 
 and is guided by the Word of God. 
 
 The General Synod in the year 1729 took 
 action in favor of the independence of the 
 Church, by the denial of the authority of 
 the State over the Church. Chapter xxiii of the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith deals with 
 the power of the civil magistrate, and the Synod 
 denied to the civil magistrate what the West- 
 minster Assembly permitted — a controlling 
 power over Synods with respect to "the exer- 
 cise of their ministerial authority." It also 
 denied to the civil magistrate the "power to 
 persecute any for their religion." These were 
 notable acts on the part of the Synod, appearing 
 [94] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 to be the first declaration, by an organized 
 Church on American soil, of the freedom of the 
 Church from control by the State. In several 
 colonies the Anglican Episcopal Church was 
 the establishment. Even in New England at 
 this time Church and State were united. Con- 
 gregationalism, as first established in the col- 
 onies, was a chain whose links were steel. An 
 organization of so-called independent Churches, 
 its ministers were held to orthodoxy and its 
 members to right living, by the strong arm of 
 the civil law. It was the civil magistrate, at 
 the call of the Church, who drove out from 
 Massachusetts, Roger Williams the Baptist, 
 and Francis Doughty the Presbyterian. The 
 Congregational was the established Church in 
 Connecticut until 1818, and in Massachusetts 
 until 1834, and even to-day in three New Eng- 
 land States there are legal provisions for the 
 support of Congregational Churches by taxa- 
 tion. To the Presbyterian Church must the 
 honor be given of the first definite statement, 
 by an organized body on American soil, of what 
 to-day is recognized as the distinctively Ameri- 
 can and true doctrine of the right relation 
 between Church and State. That relation is 
 expressed in the clear-cut statement, "A free 
 Church in a free State." 
 
 It is natural, in connection with the Pres- 
 byterian Church, to pass from the thought of 
 [95] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 religious liberty to that of evangelistic and 
 missionary work. The General Synod of the 
 Church, like the General Presbytery, was full 
 of an aggressive evangelistic spirit. It pro- 
 vided for missionary work in destitute places 
 at its first meeting, and in 1719 indicated its 
 definite realization of the value of missions in 
 cities, by voting the larger part of a sum of 
 money received from Scotland to the First 
 Presbyterian Church in New York City. 
 Knowing that the great test of a Church's 
 loyalty to Christ is its earnestness in the work 
 of the salvation of souls, the Synod gave its 
 warm support to revival movements. George 
 Whitefield had no better friends in the American 
 Colonies than the ministers and members of 
 the Presbyterian Church, and the first division 
 in the Church was brought about by differences 
 of opinion as to the need and value of revivals 
 of religion. An additional cause of the division 
 was the question as to whether in the extra- 
 ordinary circumstances which had arisen, 
 through the blessing of God upon the labors of 
 Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, 
 persons might be ordained to the ministry who 
 had not received a full education. The division 
 lasted, however, only a short time, 1743-1758, 
 and the revival and missionary spirit, instead of 
 being lessened by the controversy, was deepened 
 and intensified. As Benjamin Harrison, Presi- 
 [96] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 dent of the United States, well said of the 
 Church, "Though it has made no boast or shout, 
 it has yet been an aggressive Church; it has 
 been a missionary Church from the beginning." 
 The American Presbyterian Church was in a 
 strong sense a patriotic Church. The opening 
 of the Revolutionary struggle found the Pres- 
 byterian ministers and churches, to a man, on 
 the side of the colonies. In 1775 the General 
 Synod issued a pastoral letter, an extract from 
 which indicates the spirit prevailing in the 
 Church, and reads : *'Be careful to maintain the 
 union which at present subsists through all the 
 colonies. In particular, as the Continental 
 Congress, now sitting at Philadelphia, consists 
 of delegates chosen by the body of the people, 
 let them not only be treated with respect and 
 encouraged in their difficult service, not only 
 let your prayers be offered up to God for his 
 direction in their proceedings, but adhere 
 firmly to their resolutions, and let it be seen 
 that they are able to bring out the whole 
 strength of this vast country to carry them into 
 execution." Contemporary with this letter 
 of the Synod was the famous Mecklenburgh 
 Declaration of Independence, renouncing all 
 allegiance to Great Britain, passed by a con- 
 vention in western North Carolina composed 
 of delegates who were mostly Presbyterians, 
 thus forestalling the action of the Colonial 
 [97] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 Congress in the same line by more than a year. 
 Further, in the sessions of the Colonial Congress, 
 the influence of no delegate exceeded that 
 wielded by Rev. John Witherspoon, president 
 of Princeton College, the only clerical signer 
 of the Declaration of Independence, "a man 
 Scotch in accent and strength of conviction, 
 but American at heart." The American Pres- 
 byterian Church never faltered in its devotion 
 to the cause of the independence of these 
 United States; its ministers and members 
 periled all for their support, being ready, with 
 Witherspoon, to die, if need be, in defense of 
 civil and religious liberty. 
 
 The close relation between the Presbyterian 
 Church and the nation is shown by the fact that 
 the Constitution of the Church was adopted 
 in the same year in which the Constitution of 
 the United States was framed. The influence 
 which the Presbyterian Church exercised for 
 the securing of unity between the colonies was 
 zealously employed, at the close of the war for 
 independence, to bring them into a closer union. 
 The main hindrance to the formation of the 
 Federal Union, as it now exists, lay in the 
 reluctance of many of the States to yield to a 
 general government any of the powers which 
 they possessed. The Federal party, in its 
 advocacy of closer union, had no more earnest 
 and eloquent supporters than John Wither- 
 [98] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 spoon, Elias Boudinot, and other Presbyterian 
 members of the Continental Congress. Sander- 
 son, in his **Lives of the Signers of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence,'* states that "Wither- 
 spoon strongly combated the opinion expressed 
 in Congress that a lasting federation among 
 the States was impracticable, and he warmly 
 maintained the absolute necessity of union to 
 impart vigor and success to the measures of 
 government." In this he was aided by many 
 who had come to the views which he, as a Pres- 
 byterian, had always maintained. Slowly but 
 surely, ideas of goverziment in harmony with 
 those of the Westminster Standards, were 
 accepted as formative principles for the govern- 
 ment of the United States, and that by many 
 persons not connected with the Presbyterian 
 Church. Among these were the great leaders 
 in the Constitutional Convention: James Madi- 
 son, a graduate of Princeton, who sat as a 
 student under John Witherspoon; Alexander 
 Hamilton, of Scotch parentage, whose familiar- 
 ity with Presbyterian government is fully 
 attested; and above all George Washington, 
 who, though an Episcopalian, had so great a 
 regard for the Presbyterian Church and its 
 services to the country that he not only partook 
 of Holy Communion with its members, but also 
 gave public expression to his high esteem. 
 It is not that the claim is made that the principles 
 [99] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 of Presbyterian government were the sole source 
 from which sprang the government of the Re- 
 pubhe, but it is asserted that mightiest among the 
 forces which made the colonies a nation were the 
 governmental principles found in the West- 
 minster Standards, and that the Presbyterian 
 Church taught, practiced, and maintained in 
 fullness, first in this land, that form of government 
 in accordance with which the Repubhc has been 
 organized. The historian Bancroft says, "The 
 Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by 
 rehgion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the 
 natural outgrowth of the principles which the 
 Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her 
 sons, the Enghsh Puritans, the Scotch Covenant- 
 ers, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, 
 and the Presbyterians of Ulster." 
 
 Another feature of the history of the Synod 
 was its deep interest in education. Of the seven 
 ministers of the original Presbytery, six were 
 graduates of universities and colleges. The 
 interest of the Presbyterian Church in education, 
 however, was not solely because of its behef in an 
 educated ministry. Presbyterians taught by the 
 Holy Scriptures make religion a personal matter, 
 not between a man and the Church, but between 
 the individual soul and God, and this necessitates 
 personal knowledge on the part of human beings 
 of God's Word, God's law for human life. Educa- 
 tion in religious truth is therefore a cardinal prin- 
 [100] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 ciple for Presbyterians, and the steps are easy and 
 swift to secular and popular education. This 
 logical connection between Calvinism and educa- 
 tion is recognized by Bancroft, who says Calvin 
 was the first founder of the public-school system. 
 It is also shown by the history of academic and 
 popular education. Presbyterian Scotland es- 
 tablished the first schools for popular education. 
 Harvard and Yale universities were founded by 
 men who believed in the Westminster Confession. 
 The Presbyterian Synod itself founded the Log 
 College and its successor, Princeton University. 
 Educat on is one of the foundation stones of both 
 Church and nation. Then honor to whom honor 
 is due. Honor to the men who believed in the 
 Westminster Confession, who under its influence 
 built colleges rather than cathedrals, and who 
 believed both in educated ministers and an 
 educated people! 
 
 The peculiar and distinctive feature of the 
 history of the General Synod, above all other 
 features, was that it stood out as the leading 
 champion of true popular government. Several 
 other important Churches held to Calvinistic 
 doctrine, but the Synod was the chief representa- 
 tive, during its entire existence, of the government 
 of the Church by authoritative representative 
 assemblies. Presbyterianism is a form of Church 
 government by representative assemblies com- 
 posed of Presbyters, and so arranged as to reahze 
 [101] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 the visible unity of the whole Church. It is a 
 government by representatives with authority, 
 as over against Congregationalism on the one 
 hand, and, on the other hand, against prelacy. 
 Independency, as a form of Church polity, vests 
 government in the congregation or the brother- 
 hood of each particular church, and prelacy 
 centers control in single men. There is in this 
 matter of representative government an exact 
 parallel between the government of the United 
 States and that of the Presbyterian Church. 
 The Congress of the United States is an assembly 
 of representatives of the people, and they are 
 responsible to the people, not in the sense of the 
 local constituency that elected them, but in the 
 sense of the entire sovereign people who es- 
 tablished the Constitution. The Constitution 
 of the nation opens with the words, *'We, the 
 people of the United States." In the Church the 
 General Assembly is the supreme governing body 
 and represents, as the Constitution of the Church 
 states, *'in one body all the particular churches 
 of the denomination." This idea is not modern. 
 John Owen, the great commentator, in his "True 
 Nature of a Gospel Church," states that a single 
 congregation is to be governed by an eldership or 
 Presbytery, that is, a bench or college of Presby- 
 ters, chosen by the people as their representatives, 
 not as their deputies, chosen not to govern accord- 
 ing to the will of the people but according to the 
 [102] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 will of Christ, who ordained the Constitution of 
 the Church, created its ojQScers, and defined their 
 functions. The poet statesman, John Milton, in 
 his work, **The Reason of Church Government 
 Urged Against Prelacy'* uses the following lan- 
 guage concerning the General Assembly: "Of 
 this General Assembly every parochial Con- 
 sistory is a right homogeneous and constituting 
 part, being in itself a httle Synod and moving to- 
 wards a General Assembly upon a higher basis, in 
 an even and firm progression, as those small 
 squares in battle unite in one great cube, the main 
 phalanx, an emblem of truth and steadfastness." 
 
 Presbyterianism is not a government by Pres- 
 byters as Presbyters, but by Presbyters assembled 
 in Presbyteries. All the courts of the Church are 
 substantially Presbyteries. The same elements 
 are found in all of them, from the lowest to the 
 highest. Representatives of the whole Church 
 govern the representatives of each part, and that 
 not by a direct control of the part but by con- 
 trolhng the power of the part, and all the local 
 Presbyteries are combined by representatives into 
 one great Presbytery, called as a rule the General 
 Assembly. 
 
 The American Presbyterian Church organized 
 itself upon the principles just stated, and con- 
 stituted first a General Presbytery, then a General 
 Synod having under it four local Presbyteries, 
 and reached the consummation of its organiza- 
 [103] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 tion in 1788 in the General Assembly, which 
 ''represents in one body all the particular churches 
 of the denomination." The General Assembly 
 is a nation-wide Presbytery, as truly a govern- 
 ment of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people, as the Congress of the United States. 
 
 It is important further to remember in this 
 connection that the modern founder of repre- 
 sentative government was John Calvin. That 
 great theologiai was also great as a statesman. 
 In his "Institutes' he teaches the principles of 
 representative government, and bases them upon 
 the Bible. 
 
 Calvin's "Institutes," containing his theory of 
 constitutional resistance to tyrants through 
 representative magistrates, was for centuries a 
 standard book among all Protestants. Probably 
 no other theological work was so widely read and 
 so influential as the "Institutes," from the time 
 of the Reformation to the American Revolution. 
 "At least seventy-four editions in nine languages, 
 besides fourteen abridgments, appeared before 
 the Puritan exodus to America, an average of one 
 edition annually for three generations Hugue- 
 nots, Scots, Dutchmen, Walloons, and Germans, 
 and an overwhelming majority of the American 
 colonists of the seventeenth century, were nur- 
 tured on its political theories as well as on the 
 strong meat of its theology." 
 
 Calvin's teachings as to popular government 
 [ 104 ] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 were based upon his fundamental premises of the 
 absolute sovereignty of God, and of the resulting 
 sovereignty of the Bible as the Word of God. 
 This absolute divine authority * 'limited all earthly 
 princes,'* and made both king and representative 
 magistrate responsible to both God and men. 
 Calvin moreover pictured that ''singular and truly 
 sovereign power of God" not as "idly beholding 
 from heaven," "but as holding the helm of the 
 universe." 
 
 Before his death Calvin had combined the 
 theory of constitutional resistance to tyrants, 
 through ordained representatives of the people, 
 with another far-reaching idea, that of a funda- 
 mental written law. He emphasized to the 
 modern world the distinct conception of a written 
 constitution as an essential feature of the govern- 
 ment of a state. 
 
 Consider what God has accomplished through 
 these modern times for representative constitu- 
 tional government! Think concisely upon the 
 advance made. 
 
 In 1788 the only actual political federated 
 repubhcs in existence were the Swiss Confedera- 
 tion and the United States of America — about 
 six million persons in all, and lacking all 
 resources except faith in God, faith in the people, 
 and a firm courage. 
 
 If we spread out a map of the ^^orld of to-day, 
 for the purpose of comparing the territorial extent 
 [105] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 of the different kinds of governments existing at 
 the present, we find that the area covered by 
 repubhcs occupies approximately 30,250,000 
 square miles, or considerably more than one half 
 the habitable surface of the globe. 
 
 If we add the area of the British Empire, the 
 spirit of whose government is largely democratic, 
 and whose "autonomous colonies," as the Domin- 
 ions are now called, are virtually republics, the 
 area of free government reaches the enormous 
 total of about 41,500 000 square miles, or about 
 four fifths of the inhabited earth. 
 
 Turning now to the proportions of the popula- 
 tion of the globe under the republics and under 
 other forms of government, we find that of the 
 total inhabitants of the earth, estimated at 
 1,600,000,000, more than 850,000,000 are hving 
 under nominal republics; and if we add the popu- 
 lation of the British Empire, which is called a 
 commonwealth of popular governments, the total 
 would be about 1,250,000,000, or more than 
 three fourths of the human race. If to these 
 areas and populations we add those under sub- 
 stantially constitutional governments, excluding 
 all those under avowedly autocratic rule, we find 
 only a small fraction of the globe still adhering to 
 an autocratic system which only a century and a 
 quarter ago was practically universal. Calvin's 
 ideas of representative government are winning 
 out all over the world. And it is most significant 
 [106] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 that God has placed at the head of the American 
 Repubhc, at this time of stress, in this hour of 
 sharp conflict between democracy and autocracy, 
 a man who beheves in Calvin's principles. Presi- 
 dent Woodrow Wilson is a Presbyterian Ruhng 
 Elder. 
 
 The record which we have considered is one that 
 is remarkable for the clearness of vision and the 
 breadth of spirit which characterized the founders 
 of the American Presbyterian Church. From the 
 beginning they appeared to realize that theirs wa s 
 an unequaled opportunity in relation to the 
 political, moral, and spiritual weKare of mankind. 
 In no particular were they narrow, short-sighted, 
 or biased by mere material considerations. They 
 evidently grasped the things which are unseen and 
 eternal, and applied their spirit in the conduct of 
 the things which are seen and temporal. The 
 purposes which animated them are shown in a 
 letter written by John Witherspoon in 1772 to the 
 Committee of Dissenters in England. The ex- 
 tract reads: "We beg leave also to inform you 
 that we are collecting the state of religious 
 hberty in the several colonies on this continent 
 and its progress in each of them from their first 
 settlement, which may be capable of important 
 uses in the grand struggle we or our posterity 
 may be called to make in this glorious cause, in 
 which the happiness of thousands yet unborn is so 
 deeply interested." 
 
 [107] 
 
TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 One would almost think that Witherspoon had 
 in vision conditions which prevail to-day through- 
 out the world, and we may rest assured that he 
 had a clear conception of what the struggle for 
 American independence meant both for Ameri- 
 cans and for humanity. His associates were 
 men of like spirit and character. They united 
 loyalty to country with loyalty to the Church, 
 and read into their conception of Christianity 
 elevated ideas and purposes which gave them to 
 act, not for a day, but for all time. They looked 
 forward to an hour when the Church of God 
 should have attained to its rightful authority 
 over human thought and conduct, and when 
 everywhere men should have been enfranchised 
 with the liberty which is through Christ Jesus. 
 All hail to the men who were founders of the 
 American Presbyterian Church, and through it 
 promoters of true Hberty- both in Church and 
 State, and whose endeavors along moral and 
 rehgious lines gave an impetus to their influ- 
 ence which has increased through the passing 
 years, so that to-day, for all lovers of humanity, 
 faith is the substance of things hoped for, and ours 
 is the assurance that * 'government of the people, 
 by the people, for the people, shall not perish 
 from the earth." 
 
 1108]