The American Presbyterian
AND
GENESEE EVANGELIST.
RELIGIOUS AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER,
I 1 Ti' INURRST OF TM
Constitutional Presbyterian Church,
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY,
AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE,
1834 Chestnut Street, (2d Story,) Philadelphia.
Rev. JOHN W. NEARS, Editor and Publisher..
CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES.
SEM PAGE—FAMILY:
Christ and the Little Ones—The Soft Summer Shower
—Building Castles in.the Air—A. Lie of Honor—An
Economical Pump—Profanity a Sign of Ignorance—
The Last Hours of Prince Albert--The pabbath a
Boon—ln Season—Daniel Webster—Moral Courage.
TRIED PAGE—EDITOR'S TABLE;
D'A übigne's History—Warner's Hard Maple . and
Sybil and Chrysaa—Sohneck's Burning of Chambers
burg—Fanny Fern's New Story Book. The Bdugea
tionnl Literatureof America—U. S.-Christian Comm'n.
SIXIII P<OL—CORRESPONDENOE:
Open Air Meetings, No. I—The Oil Regions of Penn
sylvania—lV hat Must the God of the Heavens Be ?
Religious Intelligence.
SIMINTR PAGE—MISCELLINEOI:IB:
The Painter and the Monk—Scenes and Ineidints 0
the Time of Calvin—None Other Name.
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MORE DOOTRINES FOR THE TIMES.
Said Dr. Robert Breckenridge, in a
speech made in Kentucky a few days
ago:
"This thing of revolt, secession, or
rebellion, whatever - it may be, must be
exterminated root and branch. It is
not necessary that every man should
be killed, but the rebellious spirit must
be crushed out and removed. In this
;lies the only safety of the country."
This is the true doctrine. Rebellion
is a capital crime against society, and
must be dealt with in the most vigorous
and uncompromising manner. Its wick
edness and its noxiousness must be boldly
exposed by the religious teachers of the
community- Now is the time ; perhaps,
of all others in the world's history, to
inculcate the truth, to inform and imbue
the public conscience with just and
wholesome sentiment, and to kindle the
soul to a righteous indignation against
this monstrous wrong.
Already the popular mind, to a great
degree,bas settled upon this correct view
•of the case. A leading instinct of the
Anglo-Saxon character is for social
order, and a murderous assault against
that order must inevitably stir up the
keenest indignation of a people so large
ly Anglo-Saxon as ours. We firmly be
lieve that all the efforts now making by
base men—well organized and vigor
ous as they are—to abate that indigna
tion and lower the moral tone of the
people, will be found unavailing. In
spite of appeals to the lowest, meanest
principles of our nature—to a covetous
which might be expected to shrink from
taxation; to cowardice which might be
expected to shrink from military ser
vice; to false and licentious notions of
liberty which might be expected to rebel
against the unavoidable strictness and
severity of government measures in a
time of civil strife, the people will main
tain their uncompromising attitude to
wards rebels in arms against a good
government like our own. They will
still consent to pay the necessary taxes;
they will still freely give their sons,
themselves, for the defence of the na
tional life; they will still peaceably sub
mit to drafts, to the suspension of habeas
corpus, to restrictions on trade, to high
prices of living; nay, they will demand,
through their representatives and exec
utive officers, every energetic, prompt,
decisive measure, at whatever cost, to
crush so foul a crime as rebellion, and
punish adequately so malignant a class
of offenders as the traitors and pirates
of the South. Rebellion must be crush
ed, and its causes extirpated; this is
the simple common sense demand of
every thinking, unprejudiced mind in
the community.
Here is a sentiment which must go
far to prepare the mind for the reception
of some of the cardinal principles of
71 1) i
irtV irtrl -) c; Li t 1111
New Series,' 'Vol. I, No. 40.
evangelical teaching. It is a strong,
positive, sweeping sentiment against
rebellion. It is one ready for the sever
est retributive measures. It is deeply
concerned for the maintenance of Law
and Government. It opens springs of
the most ardent sympathy for assailed
and jeopardized authority. Precisely
such is the authority of God in this
world. Though supreme, though infin
itely just and beneficent, though 'the
source and fountain of all other legiti
mate authority in the world and the
security for all the order, peace and
happiness of the whole moral creation,
it is assailed by causeless, wicked and
wide-spread rebellion. God's command
ments are broken, his name is taken in
vain, his Sabbaths are profaned, • his
word is disbelieved, his Holy Spirit is
grieved, his Son is rejected, his grace is
derided. The heathen rage, the people
imagine a vain thing; the kings of the
earth set themselves, and the rulers
take counsel together, against the Lord
.and against his anointed, saying : Let
us break their bands asunder and cast
away their cords from us i Unjustifia
ble rebellion against a human govern
ment is but one of the forms of rebellion
against God who ordained human gov
ernment. We cannot regard the one
offence as dangerous and malignant be
yond description, and not be easily led
to look upon the other in the same light.
We cannot demand for a human govern
ment what we would not ask for the
divine government. If one is sacred,
much more is the other from which it
springs. If one should be sustained
with all the power and resources which
can be commanded, much more the
other. If one has a right to our ardent
sympathies ; if it is infamous for us to
waver and shuffle in our attitude to
wards the one; if property, friends and
life itself should be sacrificed in promot
ing the one, much more are these things
tru3 of the other. And if it is right for
us to urge the condign punishment of
incorrigible rebels against a human gov
ernment, and to be indignant at undue
leniency on the part of those in. authori
ty, towards such offenders, much more
should we expect from the all-seeing,
the infinitely just and Almighty Ruler,
the'exercise of like severity towards of
fenders against his holy, perfect and
universal government. If we demand
that rebellion against an earthly au
thority be utterly crushed, much more
chould we look to the Deity for the
utter suppression of rebellion against
himself. It should not startle us to
know that he has determined to break
the rebellious with a rod of iron, and to
dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Such a purpose on the part of an assail
ed human government,givesus deep sat
isfaction and a sense of security; ought
we to feel differently when it is avowed
by the Supreme and Universal Ruler ?
Of what avail, indeed, were our puny
efforts to stay the tide of anarchy and
maintain civil order, if He in whom 'rest
all Law and Order and Authority, even
slightly wavered in his purpose to main
tain them ? The very sternness of his
purpose severely to punish rebellion
must bring peace to every well regulat
ed mind.
.$3 00
. 5 50
. 7 60
.12 00
1$ 00
Yes !...lEfe does and will visit incorrigi
ble rebellion with the severest of all his
judgments. He will banish the offen
ders from his holy and blessed presence
forever. He will shut them up in an
abode of indescribable darkness and
horror " and thrice three-fold the gates
of brass and adamant and iron." They
shall be abandoned to the gnaviings of
their own guilty consciences, and to
the society of those equally wretched,
lost and wicked with themselves. God
will Crush rebellion against his govern
ment. He will vindicate the majesty of
assailed law. He will make plain to the
Universe his unalterable, eternal pur
pose to sustain the grandeur and perma
nence of his moral government, if it re
quires a place of unending torment for
the finally impenitent, and the sacrifice
of his own co-equal Son, in the flesh, for
the salvation of those that repent and
receive the terms of pardon.
Now is the time to preach these doc
trines. Now is the time to draw off the
public mind from merely sentimental
views of religion, and from contemplat
ing God simply and weakly as an indul
gent Father. Now is the time to ex
plode forever such sickly views of the
divine .character and government as
woald excite pity or contempt in the
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1864.
humblest human official. Now is the
time to draw, with bold hand and in
strong colors, the great features of the
divine sovereignty and justice; now
you may tear away, like cobwebs, the
flimsy sophistries under which men seek
to bury the doctrine of Eternal Punish
ishment. Now, more forcibly than
ever, you may insist on Obedience; you
may proclaim man's responsibility to
the Law; you may bring home to him
the hopelessness of his condition as a
sinner and may shut him up to Christ.
It is hardly to be expected that the
covert infidelity of this country will fail
to avail itself of the heresy on the sub
ject of inspiration, which has proved
itself so unmanageable an element in
the English establishment. For this
reason the strifes of that church against
it are a subject of importance tows on
this side of the Atlantic.
The doctrines of Bishop Colenso and
of the "Essays and Reviews" are no
radical improvement upon the semi-infi
delity of the continent. They are at
best but a re-bash—an Anglicised Ger
man rationalism, with just enough of
modification to avail themselves of the
charm of novelty in their strife for pop
ularity; but in their substantials, the
same stripe of skepticism which,through
the whole period of the revival of learn
ing, the church has often met, foiled,
lived through, and lived down. Not
withstanding the alarming progress
they have recently been making in the
English church, there is unquestionably
a sufficient amount of vital faith in the
establishment to cast off their propaga
tors, and throw them where any decent
amount of honor would long since have
led themto go voluntarily—to the outside
—were it not, for one thing. That
thing is, it is an establishment, and as
such, is impotent of power for spiritual
jurisdiction in the last resort. It is a
church in bondage to the throne; one
from whose most solemn judgment of
doctrine or discipline of men, an appeal.
may be taken to the civil tribunal for
review and final sentence.
This, as we understand the case, is
just the dead wall against which that
chuarch has come in its effort to purge
itself from complicity in the recent
attacks upon divine inspiration. And
so the authors of those attacks, in their
labors against the faith, continue to
command the influence of their eccle
siastical standing—for example, Colen
so, living in England and writing
against the Bible, yet holding on to the
revenues of his bishopric in South Afri
ca, and wearing the mitre of a Bishop
in the English church.
We see for the many good prelates
and clergy of that church no remedy
for this deplorable, not to say disgrace
ful state of things, short of that offered
in the example of the noble and holy
exodus of the Free Church in Scotland.
It is now not far from a quarter of a
century since the question between
the Presbyterian establishment in
Scotland, and their Lord Christ,
came squarely up, They stood up be
fore it with unblenching front, and
accepted the issue with a martyr spirit.
We fear that we cannot yet expect the
orthodox element in the English church
to come up to this mark of moral intre
pidity. Perhaps indeed a right and
true policy would dictate a campaign, of
effort, in their present connection, to
disenthral their church as a whole from
this enslavement to the civil courts.
But without one or the other of these
reforms, we expect to see them as help
less of power in their strife against the
present corruption, as they were when
attacked by another deadly error—Pa
seyism. In their present political
relations, the vaunted idea of a full
manned Episcopacy as a defence against
heresy and a "pillar and ground of the
faith," is fast running to a mortifying
conclusion.
But what of the Episcopal church in
this country ? In a recent , number of
this paper it was stated,on the authority
of -the Episcopal Recorder, ,that the at
tempt to get up from the bishops and
clergy of that church, a great Ameri
can declaration against the odious sen
timents of the " Essays and Reviews,"
was likely to prove a signal failure.
We read, however, with pleasure that,
in the view of the Recokder, this failure
was not attributable to any extensive
COLENSOISM.
Genesee Evangelist, No. 959.
.unsoundness of the church on the points
tin question, but to other causes which
were. specified. We presume this ex
planation is correct. Our confidence in
that paper would lead us to accept it,
and it corresponds with all the little
perional knowledge we have on the sub
ject. We believe that Colensoism has
thus far made no very alarming pro
gress in the Episcopal church in this
country, and that aside from the danger
which grows out of its natural sympa
thies with the English church, it is in
no peculiar peril from this heresy—none
but what is common to us all.
Yet we would have rejoiced, could
the Recorder have given us a still lower
estimate of its probable minimum of ad
vance. We confess to a slight nervous
ness, as we read, "Among our clergy
there are not probably twenty who do
not repudiate the Essays and Reviews."
We would have rejoiced could this ex
ception have been reduced to naught, or,
if -it must remain, to have been assured
that it did not include a single prelate.
We allude to this matter chiefly for
the purpose of saying that, in this
country, there is no impediment in the
way of the Episcopal church making for
itself'a clean record in the matter. We
say this in honest congratulation. It
has a free track; and a wholesome dis
cipline, especially if administered on the
obsta, proicipis principle, would do the
wade work of the Declaration, and do.
it Without any " gratuitous interraed
dam with a sister church." If a Penn
syh'-ania Bishop finds one of his clergy
writing or preaching that the Bible is
full of gross chronological and historical
errors, inspired only in certain portions
and:'a limited sense, and commanding
our faith only to a certain extent, he
can degrade him from the ministry, and
there is no crown thancellor to re-in
state him in the / teeth of the spiritual
judgment. So also if the House of
Bishops find the same derilection in one
of their own number, they can pass a
judgment over which no earthly court
can have control.
The ,Episcopal church bas a sound
creed upon the subject of inspiration
and a compact judicial system for the
protection of that creed. In this newest
phase of apostacy we had feared more
for the soundness of denominations
which have no ecclesiastical remedy for
open contempt of their traditional faith.
We had expected and still expect the
most trouble from men whose amenabil
ity is to the loosest system of church
government—men who, like George
Beecher—can snap their fingers at the
most solemn resolves of a council, and
fling defiance at all spiritual authority,
and do it all without any disturbance to
their ecclesiastical relations. The Ameri
can Episcopal church, it is true, has no
power to stop a heretic's mouth : no
church should have that. But she has
power to disabuse herself of all suspicion
of complicity in the case—power to
wash her own hands of both the heresy
and the heretic. Twenty anti-inspira
tion clergy in her bosom are enough for
scandal and enough for mischief. If
the twenty, or if one of them be there,
and show incorrigibility of temper, let
her make prompt application of this
power, and, as we have said, she will
thus put forth the most influential
Declaration against the infidel tenden
cies which are now periling the life
of her trans-atlantic sister.
THE CONSTANTINOPLE PERSECU
TION.
We believe the facts respecting the late
violent proceedings at Constantinople against
Mahomedan converts to Christianity and the
Protestant missions, in violation of treaty
stipulations, are now pretty well established.
The American Board at Boston has, with
great labor, gathered from various sources,
a full amount of information on the subject,
which it has condensed into a luminous state
ment occupying over six pages of the Octo
ber number of the Missionary Herald. For
the use of those of our readers who do not
see the Herald, we shall compress into the
present article, the main points of the state
ment.
The facts of the sudden and unexpected
arrest and imprisonment of seven or eight
liabornedan converts, the closing of the
establishment occupied in common by the
British and Foreign Bible Society, the Amer
ican Bible Society, and the American Board
of-Missions, turn out to be just as they were
stated in the first reports of the outrage, as
published by us at the time. What was then
given as a supposed fact,. also proves true—
that this was done under the immediate or
der of the Sultan. It also appears that the
imprisoned brethren were subjected to un
usual rigor ; that for a long time—up to
July 30 it had been ten days—no access
whatever was allowed to them, "not even
for conveying a change of linen, or a gar
ment to protect one of them from the cold
and damp of the prison at night. And this
was true while prisoners convicted of murder, and
awaiting their execution, were not denied commu
nication with their friends." Rev. Mr. Curtis,
of the Propagation Society was, at the same
time, arrested without a warrant, by the
Turklish police, and subsequently released.
Two violations of political rights are in
volved in this proceedings. The first re
lates to the arrest of a foreigner. It appears
that
"Foreign residents in Turkey ate not sub
ject to Turkish laws, neither are they in
any way under the control of the Turkish
police. This is the fundamental principle
which regulates the relations of foreign resi
dents to the Turkish Government. At an
annual expense of many thousand pounds,
the English Government maintains a system
of consular courts to administer to English
subjects English law, and no Turkish police
officer has any more right to arrest the per
son or enter the house of •an Englishman in
Constantinople, than he would to do the
same thing in London . If the Turkish
Government has any complaint to make
against any English subject ; they must do it
through the consular court. The same rights
are guaranteed by treaty to all other foreign
residents."
The other political offence :is equally
against the foreigners and subjects of the
Sultan. A few years since, overborne by the
demands of civilization, the Porte found it
self compelled to abandon the barbarous
system of intolerance, which made it a crime
of the highest degree fora Mussulman to be
come a christian, or for a christian to be in
strumental in the conversion of a Mussulman
Christian missions had been tolerated only
among the nominally christian sects or the
Jews. At the period referred -to, a Haiti
Sherif, or imperial edict, guaranteed alike to
Mahomedans and other subjects of the em
pire, religious toleration, reserving to Ma
homedanism the ascendancy as the national
religion. This opened the doors to christian
labors among the Mahomedans, and gave
full permission to the latter to profess Chris
tianity.
The animus of the proceeding is probably
referable to an. " irrepressible conflict" in
the heart of Islamism itself—a part of the
universal strife between progress and resis
tance to improvement. The Mahomedan
population of Turkey is divided into two
parties--the one disposed to intro duce into
the empire the civilization and general culti
vation of the West, and, as a necessary part
of the improvement, to relax the bonds of
religious bigotry, still keeping up the form
of the old religion as bound up with the State;
the other is jealous of all progress which has
any Christian association, and anxious for
the extirpation of Christianity itself. The
Sultan has generally been regarded as sym
pathizing with the former of these parties,
but has latterly found it convenient to con
ciliate the turbulent spirits of the old regime.
A startling measure of unmistakable conces
sion to the spirit of the ancient Islamism
was just the thing for the occasion.
But how was he to answer to the civilized
world for so flagrant a breach of the solemn
decree of toleration, and that without one
note of warning ? Especially, how was he
to answer to the British governthent, which
is supposed to be the special protector of the
rights of Protestants in Turkey? Just here
occurs the darkest page in the history of the
transaction. The British Ambassador in
Constantinople is Sir Henry Bulwer, a man
who has exhibited an unmistakable hostility
to all attempts toward the conversion of
Mahomedans, regarding it as an unfriendly
interference with the religion of a friendly
State. Long experience of his policy to
ward the missions forbids any hope of inter
ference on his part, any further than it
should be forced from him by the severest
requirements of duty, and renders it proba
ble that, when compelled to interfere, it
would be in such way as would afford as
much aid and comfort to the aggressors as
to the sufferers. And so we shall directly
see the event has proved. It is certain that
there is in the minds of people in Constanti
nople a dark suspicion that he had a pre
cognizance of the transaction, and that the
authorities went about it with a perfect feel
ing of safety, to far as his agency was con
cerned. How he met the occasion after the
outbreak, shows for itself. As the matter
now stands, this ambassador lies under a re
sponsibility in the present case, second only
to that of the Porte itself.;
Of course, it is not to be expected that the
Sultan will make a square confession of the
violation of his Matti Sherif. There is al
ways some ready subterfuge for wrong done,
and nowhere does it come into better play
than in diplomacy. And so when Sir Henry
comes officially into the affair, he informs
the missionaries, from the Sultan, that their
brethren have not been persecuted for re
ligion's sake—not at all !--but the complaint
is that the work of the missionaries was be
ing pursued at a place and in a manner,
which amounted to an open attack. against
the Mahomedan religion. This the imperial
edict of toleration was never intended to
permit. Christians might proclaim their
own religion, but not expose Mahomedan-
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ism to scandal. Mahomedans might become
Christians, but not opponents of their for
mer religion. As regards the plan, the mis
sionaries had taken rooms in Khans, in the
Mussulman quarters of the city—really the
quarters for general business.
It was further said that the reason for
closing the Bible room was, that the Porte
believed the establishment to be a depot of
controversial books, and the missionaries
above mentioned to be connected with the
Bible Society. When satisfied on this point;
those rooms were re-opened,with an apology.„
as the Porte does not object to the sale a
distribution of Bibles, in Turkish even, in
bookstores. It does not, moreover, mean or
wish to interfere with regular Protestant
worship, in churches or private houses.
"But it will not allow any attempts, pub
lic or private, to assail the IVlussulman reli
gion. It will allow Mussulmans to become
Christians, but it will not allow them, any
more than it will other Christians, to go
about speaking publicly against Mohamme
danism."
Sir Henry then
"Records his strong disapprobation of
every form of attack upon lliohamdanism
in Turkey, as imprudent, impolitic, and an
ungrateful return, as Englishmen and as
Protestants, for the hospitality and the reli
gious liberty afforded by the Ottoman Go
vernment."
In reply to so much of Sir Henry's state
ment as relates to the imprisoned Turks,
the missionaries say:
" The head and front of their offending'
is, that those of them who have really
changed their religion have told their for
mer co-religionists that they were Chris
tians and why they were such ; and for this
they were thrown into prison. Is this, we
humbly ask, religious liberty? We have
reason to believe that stories about the in
flammatory character of the conduct of these
men were mainly raised, and exaggerated
and circulated by those,—not alone Illussul
mans,—who are inimical as well to the
Government as to ourselves. We believe
that fears. of danger from their being at
large, were manufactured fears, to be made
real only by just such violent measures as
have been taken, which at once rouse the
attention of the people, and enable them to
point to these Christian Turks as taken in
hand for discipline, by the Government."
The present position of the case is as fol
lows. Sir Henry has patched up with the
Porte a so-called "arrangement of the dif
ficulty." The substance of this arrange
ment, as stated in the Levant Herald, in an
article which bears the impress of the am
bassador's authority, is--
" The book-stores and offices of the seve
ral societies have been re-opened, and full
liberty given to their agents to preach to
all corners in their respective chapels and
private houses, but not in the khans or
other public places of Stamboul. The free
sale of them in book stores is permitted, but
not the colportage about the capital, nor
either the sale or gratuitous distribution
of controversial works attacking Moham
medanism. The native converts under
arrest are, for their own protection, and as
a measure of precaution against popular
excitement,' to be temporarily removed
from the capital to some English consular
station in the provinces, the Porte engaging
to provide for their families during their
absence."
In relation to this arrangement, the Mis
sionary Herald justly remarks :
" It may be said in brief, that it puts an
end at once to religious liberty in Turkey,
so far as Protestantism is concerned, and
will make missionary labor for Greeks, Ar
menians, Turks and Jews, at once imprac
ticable.
The principle of religious liberty now laid
down by the Turkish Government, and ap
proved by the British Ambassador, is this :
Every man is at liberty to continue quietly
in the profession of the fath of his fathers,
whatever it may be, but he is not at liberty
to invite or persuade any one else to change
their former faith for his. If, however, any
person, without invitation or persuasion,
desires to change his religion quietly,-he is
at liberty to do so ; but the Porte, in this
case, reserves to itself the right to exile
him, " for his own protection,' but not as a
punishm en t !
It should be born in mind, that this sur
render of religious liberty is made only by
the British Ambassador, as the representa
tive of Protestantism. The Jesuit missions
are undisturbed, although they have pub
licly baptized more Turks than the Protes
tants. They have the fullest liberty to
proselyte in all directions, and their con
verts are secure from all persecution. They
are not even exiled " for their own safety!'
the Turkish Government would as soon
think of declaring war with France as of
restricting Catholic missions ; but having
the full sympathy of the British Ambassa
dor, they have taken a step against Protes
tant missions which places them in a worse
position than that which they occupied be
fore the publication of the Hatti Sherif."
A CREED AT LAST
An exchange says :—" To check
the growing tendency to rationalism
among the liberal ministers, the New
York association of Universalists has
recently adopted a confession of faith,
excluding from fellowship all who do not
accept it. Its essential statement is :
I sincerely declare that I receive the
Bible as containing a special and suffi
cient revelation from God, which is the
rule of Christian faith and practice : and
that I will strive faithfully to preach its
doctrines and inculcate its principles."
We doubt whether the "liberal minis
ters" will feel any great embarrassment
from this confession. We presume
Bishop Colenso would swallow it, not
making a wry face about it either.