CHAPTER XIV.

THE ASSEMBLIES OF 1869.

Ir has been truly said that "the meetings of the Old and New School General Assemblies of 1869, almost within speaking distance, on Murray Hill, New York, will be memorable so long as the Presbyterian Church lives in this country or the world."

Representative bodies of Christ's ministers, having the same historic name and polity, were convened in the spirit of concord, and were yearning, though long alienated, to become again one.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America had now attained its fourscore years. It had reached this age "by reason. of strength," and so far from the "strength" being "labor and sorrow," the labor and sorrow had become the strength. The movement now happily culminating and traced through a history of strife and tears, stands without a parallel in the annals of the Christian Church. That bodies formerly one household, but long time sundered by great questions of doctrine and olity, with all the animosities and jealousies spring. ng out of such a disruption, should become one again, after a generation of separate, and often of rival action -this was the marvel! But just because the division had lasted through a generation, it was all the more

a time for Reunion, when most of the men, left on the field, had not been personally involved in the act of separation. It was also because there was vitality in the parts that there was the element of healing: Or rather, because the Spirit of the Lord had breathed upon the scattered limbs, that they came together again, bone to his bone, in all the plain.

The event, considered in all its bearings, is so signal and so significant as to seem to be a great first chapter in that Johannean development for which the Church looks and waits-the age of Christian concord and love, in all the body of Christ. It is notable that the generation which had been passed in division, and to some extent also in dissension, had wrought silent and steady results towards conciliation. Each body, claiming, on whatever ground, to be "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America," — what wonder if each was, all the while, the rather intent on making good its claim in the eye of the world? Besides, the lessons of the strife had been put to account, to the end of correcting what was amiss. So that, at this period, the respective parts were found, by all confession, in great degree, homoge neous, as they were not at the division - thus always tending towards each other, rather than apart. The Congregational element, introduced by "The Plan of Union" of 1801, had, in large measure, occasioned the outbreak of 1837; and the question was whether the disruption would work in that direction, as to doctrine and polity, or in the line of reaction towards the old paths. It was just the steadfast adherence to the Pres byterian faith and order in the mass, that came, at

length, to demand a Reunion of the respective parts, when the reconsideration and adjustment, on either side, had so diminished the differences. Every lover of the Church felt that there was a great sacrifice of Church power by such separate operation, which could be justified no longer when essential divergence was at

an end.

Different views, it is true, were all along taken of the situation. And some on both sides, who had been opposed to the disruption, were now as conscientiously opposed to the Reunion. But it was just the question whether the grand inner forces of a true Presbyterianism were not steadily working towards a homogeneity which would warrant a reuniting of the sundered but affiliated parts, and whether the time had not even now come for the Reunion. True, it could be claimed that the signal thrift and success of the two branches, in their separation, were such as to justify the separate organizations, and that a healthful competition had been even an element of success fully warranting a longer continuance apart; but such a view is quite too secular, and overlooks the higher demands for the oneness of the Church of Christ by all legitimate means. But peril to Scriptural doctrine was the stronger point made by not a few, and that on either side.

Though at the disruption the formal question was a constitutional one, a question of Church polity rather than of creed, — and though, as to doctrine, the separating portion had then formally protested their orthodoxy, and some of the highest authorities in the exscinding body were so agreed, and maintained that the divergence was not such as to infer separation, yet,

all along, a zeal for the truth, as set forth in our Cal vinistic system, led many in the Old School branch to dissent, or greatly to hesitate as to the Reunion. But actual uniformity is not pretended in either body; and the degree of divergence can only be measured and adjudged, in individual cases, according to the rules of the Church, as plainly provided. If freedom of private judgment has most asserted itself in the Presbyterian family, to the extent of schism, for what has seemed the truth's sake, yet who shall deny that the truth of God has its most noble and Biblical definition and exposition in our cherished Westminster formulas of faith, which are the common family heritage? And, what wonder, if with these in hand, and claimed equally by both, the distinctive truth they set forth should dispose and draw together the living parts as essentially one in the vital doctrines of salvation? But the facts and auguries, in the case, were interpreted differently. As in the proverb of the red sky, it is a sign of storm or of sunshine, according as it is seen at dawn or at evening; so the same facts were tokens of conflict or of concord, according as they were viewed.

And according as acknowledged differences are maximized or minimized, must be the judgment and action in the case before us.

At a time when Anti-Christ, in all the forms of papacy and infidelity, rallies the strongest forces, and displays a solid front against the Holy Child Jesus, and His true Church; and when the exigencies of our time are so alarming, it must be accounted as, at least, a Christian sentiment, even though it were a practical

mistake, that these great bodies, one in confession of faith and form of government -one in their mode of organization and of operation, and one aforetime, with a common ancestry and history should be again or ganically one, for most effective action. For here, in the Divine arithmetic, it is most plain that one is more and better than two.

A brief review of the antecedents will prepare us better to estimate the status of 1869, and the constituent elements of this Assembly.

There were mainly, from the first, four classes in the Church on this great question of Reunion. Some were in favor of it, most positively, and by all lawful means. Others, a decreasing few, were as positively opposed to it, by all means, on the ground of essential differences believed to exist in doctrine and order. A larger num ber, early averse, then dubious and distrustful, were, at length, desirous of its accomplishment so soon as the constitutional terms could be carried. And others, a few, were at the first opposed, and at length only ready to acquiesce in what was seen to be inevitable, yet all the while insisting on the safest and best terms.

In 1866, both Assemblies having met in the same city of St. Louis, the first formal initiative was taken by the Old School body. They proposed the naked basis of "our common standards," and expressed "an earnest desire for the Reunion, at the earliest time consistent with agreement in doctrine, order, and polity, and the prevalence of mutual confidence and love, which are necessary to a happy union, and to the permanent peace and prosperity of the Church.”

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