tary on the Bible. The subject of unemployed minis ters and vacant congregations has been repeatedly dis cussed, but without any effective action. Mr. Joseph M. Wilson, the indefatigable advocate of churchmanses, has succeeded in engaging for his project the favorable attention of the church.

There have been several attempts, during the same period, to make important changes in the Form of Government, Book of Discipline and Directory for Worship. Offices for the administration of baptism and for the public admission of church-members have been proposed, but have not found favor. An able committee, appointed in 1864, elaborated a plan for trying judicial cases in synod and in the General As sembly by a commision of appeals in each, composed of four ministers and four elders, elected, two every year, for four years. This plan, however, was rejected by the presbyteries, although it has been an almost universal conviction, that some radical change ought to be effected for the dispatch of judicial business in our larger church courts. The entire recasting of the Book of Discipline has, moreover, been before the General Assembly and the church, some of the ablest, most influential men having been engaged in the work, ever since the year 1857, until the anticipation of reunion suggested the wisdom of leaving the business to be consummated by the reunited body. There have been, besides, slight and wholly ineffectual efforts, in some quarters, to induce the church to return to the use of a liturgy.

The interval of separation has been one of very marked literary activity in the Old School body. Some

thirty original volumes, from this source, of comment upon various portions of Holy Scripture have appeared; and a very large number of important works, biographical, historical, dogmatical, practical, and miscellaneous. Probably no other denomination in the United States has produced, within the same period, so many theological books of standard value.

Before the southern churches seceded in 1861, that is, in twenty-three years from the separation, the Old School branch had much more than doubled the number of its communicants, ministers, and congregations. And now, after that secession and the loss also of the Declaration and Testimony party, it re-enters, with forces not very far from double, into organic union with the New School. To the Assembly of 1869, additions of more than fifteen thousand communicants upon examination were reported, and contributions for congregational and benevolent purposes of between four and a half and five millions of dollars. Excepting the troublous times of the rebellion, the whole period under review has been one of peace, steady enlargement, and uninterrupted prosperity. No small share of this prosperity has been due to the happy operation of the boards and similar agencies of the church. The superior advantages of these, as compared with voluntary union associations, for building up, not only Presbyterianism, but also the kingdom of Christ, few of either school now question. For a time, after the separation, many church-members and some congregations of the Old School preferred to make voluntary societies the channels of their benevolence. Their Christian freedom in this matter was not disputed; their preference was not condemned.

A

spirit of forbearance and love prevented difficulty, and by degrees has won nearly all to a hearty support of the church's own agencies.

The question, how many boards there should be, has sometimes been agitated. It has been well-nigh universally agreed, that the work of foreign missions, that of domestic missions, that of education, and that of publication, should be committed each to a separate agency; but many have thought that the Boards of Domestic Missions and Education might, between them, take the whole work now confided to that of Church Extension, to the Committee on Freedmen, and, in the matter of disabled ministers and their families, to the Trustees of the General Assembly. The location of different boards has, from time to time, been warmly discussed; but for the most part the very sensible idea has prevailed, that the northern and eastern portions of the church, as able to contribute more largely by far than the southern and western portions, should not be discouraged from devising liberal things, by having the application of their charities taken too much out of their own hands. The operations of all the boards, at times, and particularly, in several instances, those of the Boards of Domestic Missions, Education, and Publication, have been subjected to searching inquiry, with the result, occasionally, of modification and improvement, but al ways of demonstrating the general ability and fidelity with which their affairs have been managed, and of recommending them to increased confidence in the church. Said a speaker, several years ago, on this point, "The boards breathe more freely after the Assembly ad journs" -more freely, the ordeal passed, and the sub

jects of it "found unto praise and honor," yet not left without a wholesome sense of responsibility. Besides, uneasy spirits must have an outlet. Fretting over the imperfections which the best efforts of our fallen humanity, and our most effective institutions, cannot always escape, they are ready at any time for radical transformation or revolution, forgetting that incessant change may itself be one of the most ruinous of evils, and that no plan can even seem perfect, unless because untried. The church, so far as her boards have been concerned, has paid little regard to visionary perfec tionists, and has steadily maintained these agencies, as the right hand of her power.

Among them all, none has held a warmer place in her affections than the Board of Foreign Missions. Its receipts for a year, as reported in 1869, had exceeded three hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars. As to the increase of means, its prosperity, for an equal length of time, has far transcended that of the American Board, so honorably distinguished for its success. And wherever the two have labored in the same field, side by side, or in fields that can justly be compared, the results prove the Presbyterian Board to be, saying the least, not one whit behind the other in the evidences of God's blessing. The number of its church-members, on foreign missionary ground, has doubled in about five years; and average pastors at home are often compelled to mourn that they have been less successful, in our Christian land, than average foreign missionaries in the dark places of the earth.

To close this brief historical sketch, there remains but to present a simple outline, from an Old School

point of view, of the protracted negotiations that have resulted in the consolidation of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church. And here, the reader's attention will be directed to points for the most part outside of the ground occupied by the full account of the reunion, from other pens, in subsequent chapters. The Old School Assembly, in 1846, courteously declined an invitation to unite with that of the New School in celebrating the Lord's Supper, doubtless mainly on the ground, that though the great lawsuit before mentioned had been discontinued some three and a half years, former differences and conflicts were yet very fresh in thought and feeling; and each body yet expressly claimed to be the Presbyterian Church; each, too, regarding the other as making herein a sinful claim. With the language of mutual recrimination upon their lips, ought they to sit down together at the Lord's Table? In 1850, the Assembly refused to take any action upon the subject of reunion. When the rebellion commenced, however, causes similar to those which speedily brought the two branches together at the South, began to operate powerfully at the North. The common agitating excitements, alarms, perils, and sufferings of a struggle for the nation's life, drew Old and New School men into closer and more frequent communion, and the rather because of their near relationship and family resemblance. Yet, in 1862, the Old School Assembly still declined to talk of reunion, though it unanimously agreed to open a correspondence by delegates. No doubt this correspondence was a great advance toward organic unity. Nothing, however, more definite was accomplished, although the