the immaculate conception of Mary and the infalli bility of the Pope unblushingly promulgated; by the discovery of the more complete of the two oldest known manuscripts of the Greek New Testament; by the exodus of the Free Church of Scotland; by a spirit of union and communion freshly and extensively awakened among Christians; by wide openings of the Papal and Pagan world to the gospel, its more abundant success, and the wonderful outpourings of the Holy Spirit, by which, in many lands, it has been made indeed the power of God unto salvation.

For obvious reasons, the division of seventeen years between the Old Side and the New Side of the last century was of shorter duration than that just now healed. The amount of transient feeling excited was, perhaps, in the two cases, nearly equal feeling enough to rend the church in twain. But much the more important have been the differences, as to doctrine and church order alike, which have protracted the separation of the Old and New Schools. And without a general idea of these differences, we should hardly be able to understand the long continuance of the division; the history meanwhile of either school; the negotiations which have resulted in reunion; its final terms; or the prospects of the reunited church.

Affinities and a fraternal confidence which unhappily time has not increased, between Presbyterians and Congregationalists, had led to an admixture of Congregationalism in Presbyterian judicatories. The Old School insisted that this admixture, as unconstitutional, should cease. The New School contended for its toleration and extension. The Old School preferred

strictly ecclesiastical agencies for conducting the missionary and other general evangelistic work of the church, urging, particularly, the establishment of a Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. The New School desired, in union with Congregationalists, to confide this work to voluntary associations, the foreign part of it to the American Board of Commissioners. Both professed to be Calvinistic and to "receive and adopt the Confession of Faith . . . as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures;" but they differed seriously in judgment as to what was essential to that system, and, therefore, what departures from the formulary were consistent with such a profession. The Old School contended that certain errors utterly inconsistent with it were prevalent in the church; for the purification of which they endeavored to visit with discipline several prominent ministers charged with these errors. The New School argued that some of the views alleged to be erroneous were reconcilable with the Calvinistic system; denied that the others were really entertained by the parties accused, or were seriously prevalent; and resisted the discipline proposed. This difference as to doctrine the Old School uniformly considered and treated as by far the most serious difference between the parties.

The Old School majority in the General Assembly of 1837 having disowned four synods, as so far Congregationalized that they could not be any longer acknowledged as Presbyterian bodies, the New School commissioners to the Assembly of 1838, refused to recognize an organization of this judicatory which excluded representatives from the disowned constituency,

and formed another, and, as they claimed, the only true Assembly. This was but the commencement of the division. A process of separation and reconstruction, necessary to some extent in both schools, at once began, which was not completed throughout the two for several years. Most of the component parts of the former church took up their positions definitely and finally, at once, on this side or that; but some small portions remained for a while undecided; while a few made a decision at first to which they did not ultimately adhere. The whole process, though not carried through without much heat and friction, produced less of either than might have been anticipated. Appeals to the civil courts for the settlement of church disputes were not of very frequent occurrence. Here, a synod, presbytery, or congregation, without division or serious difference of opinion, declared for the Old School or the New; there, such a declaration was submitted to by some persons under protest. Minorities in many cases seceded from majorities, and frequently claimed the true succession, yet in general without open strife. Ecclesiastical records were usually retained by the bodies whose adherents happened to have them in hand. Legal right, real or imagined, often assumed at first an attitude of defiance, yet in the end yielded to the spirit of Christian forbearance. As usual in such circumstances, adherence to one side or the other was not always determined by a full, or even predominant, approval of the views or measures by that side adopted.

The Old School have always claimed to have made full provision, in 1837 and 1838, for the proper read

justment of the ecclesiastical relations of all sound churches, ministers, and judicatories involved in the disowning acts; and, by several measures adopted in the latter year and the next, they provided further for the minorities left in synods, presbyteries, and congregations, in the church at large, by the withdrawment of the New School. Before any suit at law had been commenced, they recommended, in regard to property questions, "great liberality and generosity" on the part of all their adherents. And after the main suit had resulted in their favor, they more than intimated their readiness to stand by the terms, as to temporal interests, which had been proposed and both parties had approved in their negotiations for an amicable division.

The exact relative strength of the two, when they separated, cannot be easily determined. By the statistical tables of 1837, the whole number of ministers in the yet united church was twenty-one hundred and forty, of congregations twenty-eight hundred and sixtyfive. Several years elapsed before all these ministers and congregations determined definitely their respective positions, and the numbers of the two sides could be clearly ascertained. Moreover, the New School, in 1840, commenced the experiment of a triennial Assembly, their supreme judicatory not meeting again till 1843. At the latter date, they reported twelve hundred and sixty-three ministers, and fourteen hundred and ninety-six congregations; the Old School, fourteen hundred and thirty-four of the one, two thousand and ninety-two of the other. By comparing these numbers, and allowing for the natural increase of both

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bodies in six years, we shall perhaps come nearer to their relative strength at the separation than we can in any other way.

It is an interesting fact, that the years of most earnest controversy, pending the division, were years of special religious prosperity in the Presbyterian Church. From 1829 to 1838, inclusive, the statistical reports exhibited an unusual number of additions upon profession, though the reports of 1836, 7, and 8 were less favorable than those preceding. And after the division, there was in this respect no appreciable falling off, in the Old School communion, from the exhibit of the years last mentioned.

The New School, to test their claim to the true succession, and their title to the funds and institutions of the Presbyterian Church, commenced a suit in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the state by which the Trustees of the General Assembly had been incorporated. Three other suits by commissioners from within the bounds of the disowned synods, who had been denied seats in the Assembly, were also instituted, to test in a different way the principles of the case. The one first mentioned, however, was the only one brought to trial, the decision therein being regarded as finally settling, so far at least as the courts of Pennsylvania were concerned, the whole controversy. This trial, involving as it did great interests, drawing together a number of the most distinguished men of the Presbyterian Church, and being conducted by eminent counsel on both sides, excited profound attention, and was watched throughout its progress by many anxious minds all over the United States. Early in