in gen.

laration and Testimony men, however, are now, eral, with the southern secession, or by themselves.

As early as 1866, the Assembly had declared that it deplored greatly the separation of the southern churches, and earnestly desired a reunion on the basis of the standards, and on terms consistent with truth and righteousness. In 1867, generous contributions for the relief of destitution at the South were recommended. The next year, the Southern Presbyterian Church was recognized as independent, with the expres sion of an earnest hope, that, although its separation could not be justified, it might return to its former relations; and in 1869, Christian salutations were addressed to it, with the assurance of a strong desire for a general reunion among Presbyterians throughout the land.

Our sketch, thus far, of ecclesiastical events during and since the war, makes several things which deserve consideration sufficiently evident. In the Assembly as well as out of it, ministers and ruling elders acted often under great excitement, which it would be extreme folly to say was not unfavorable to wise action. But how great had been the provocation! How impossi ble it was, the war still raging, for men whose sons, brothers, or other near relatives were at the moment exposed to death upon the field, if their lives had not been already offered up, to view the rebellion calmly, or express themselves upon it with moderation, or punctilious propriety. One reason why prudently moderate men sometimes failed to get the ear of the church was, that rank sympathizers with the South hailed them as allies, and threw upon them suspicion. Now, when the danger has passed away, we can imagine the

event to have proved that others were hasty, rash, unnecessarily alarmed and severe. The acts of men in great peril are to be judged of, however, by that peril as imminent, rather than by a subsequent providential escape; and, indeed, who can say that the Union would have been preserved, without the resolute, it may be the stern, violent patriotism of northern Christians? Nor is a general disposition now, the emergency having ceased, to relax the rigor of previous enactments, any evidence that they were originally unjustifiable. We approached, even at the North, very near to that condition actually experienced by large portions of the South, in which constitutions and laws crumble away, and natural right and Christian principle remain the only social bonds. Well may we be thankful that the review demands so little regret; that the great principles of the Gospel and of Presbyterianism were so well sustained; that so little, if any, essential injustice was done; that narrow limits to beneficial and patriotic church action were not allowed to be set. Had we realized the proverb, Inter arma silent leges, it had hardly been a wonder; but the gracious Head of the Church saved us from that calamity: to him be the praise! It is not probable, either, that a more conciliatory course in the northern Assembly would have even retarded the southern church secession; which was deliberately designed to aid the rebellion and carry out its foregone conclusions, as clearly as our acts were designed to strengthen the national government. Besides, it may well be doubted whether the coherence, during the war at least, of the northern and southern portions of the church was desirable. Men cannot, alter

nately, go out and fight against each other to the death, and come in together to the Lord's table, at once con sistent foes and consistent friends. No church could preserve its oneness the land over, through such a civil war as ours, unless the Church of Rome, with its bond of union in another and distant country.

Leaving now a topic which might well have occu pied a much larger space, it may be desirable, running over the whole period of this history, to condense into a few paragraphs, in the order of time rather than of logical connection, some brief allusions to events, particularly acts of the General Assembly, to which little room comparatively can be given. The troubles of 1837 and 1838 interrupted fraternal intercourse with various evangelical bodies at home and abroad, with which, however, a friendly correspondence was speedily re-established. Soon after the division, measures were not unsuccessfully adopted to revive and invigorate the office of deacon. Various arrangements and changes have been made to secure to the boards the advantage of periodical publications, to disseminate intelligence of their work through the churches. The latest accounts shew a circulation of sixteen thousand copies of the monthly Record; nearly one hundred thousand of the Sabbath School Visitor of the first, with thirty-four thousand additional copies of that of the fifteenth, of the month; and three thousand five hundred of the pamphlet, with almost fifty-two thousand of the newspaper, edition, both monthly, of the Foreign Missionary; besides many thousands of the several yearly reports and of various occasional issues. From about 1849, the project of a weekly religious paper, like the

Methodist Advocate, was pressed upon the Assembly for several years successively, but without effect. Yet the church has always acknowledged the unspeakable importance of religious papers, many of which have been established by private enterprise. The value of its periodical publications to the Old School, before the division, none can estimate. But then they were weighty with doctrinal discussion, and bristling with the arms of sturdy polemics. One of our most honored ministers recently said, in an address to theological students, "I cannot help thinking we shall need, in the next ten years, a little more controversial preaching:" he might wisely, perhaps, have added, "and a little more doctrinal and controversial newspaper writing."

It is probable that Millenarianism has become more prevalent among the Old School than it was in 1838, though lately it seems to have suffered a decline. The Assembly has more than once strongly recommended preaching without manuscript and expository preaching. It has discouraged ordination sine titulo. Twice the presbyteries have virtually declined to make provision for a voluntary demission of the ministry. Twice the Assembly has refused to submit to them a proposition to allow marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and other marriages falling within the same general prohibition; and it has sustained discipline for such a connection, with the explanation, however, that, though the union was sinful, it was not invalid; and with the result that church judicatories, as to discip line in this case, do each one what is right in its own eyes. Total abstinence from intoxicating drinks has

been strongly recommended, though not enjoined; unless we may regard the equivocal language of the Assembly's acts of 1865 and 1869 as amounting to an injunction, which a majority of the church, it is probable, would hardly sustain. Romish baptisms, after long hesitations, have been by a nearly unanimous vote declared void. The subject of union, more or less intimate, with evangelical, and especially Presbyterian, bodies in the United States, other than the New School, has repeatedly been brought before the Assembly, and has always awakened a favorable interest, as in the cases of the Presbyterian National Union Convention of 1867, and the National Council of Evangelical Churches proposed, in 1869, by the General Synod of the Reformed Church. The ordinations of all Protestant communions have been pronounced valid, with the express proviso, however, that ministers received from other bodies must possess the qualifications required by the Presbyterian standards. The dismission of church-members to the world has been condemned. In 1853, the Assembly addressed a memorial to Congress requesting the adoption of measures for securing the rights of conscience to our citizens abroad. The American Bible Society and the American Colonization Society have been warmly commended, although the alterations made by the former, in the received English version and its accessories, were in effect condemned, though not until the society had itself seen its mistake and withdrawn its revised editions. In 1858, the centennial anniversary of the reunion of the Old and New Sides was celebrated. The Assembly has refused to authorize the preparation of a church-commen