TO AMERICAS PRESBYTERIAN
A2 n>
GENESEE EVANGELIST.
4 *® l l*ton«and Famllyl®* eiWipaper,
IM IB IVTXBBST OF Sp
Constitutional Presbyterfiif Ohurch,
PUBLISHED EVERT THURSDAY,
AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE,
1334 Chestnut Street, (2d story,) Philadelphia.
John W. Hears, Kdltor and Publisher.
B* Hotchhin, Editor of Mews and
Family Departments.
Rev* C, P. Bush, Corresponding Editor,
Rochester, M. T.
Smmtatt JjraligMait.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1865.
CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES.
Second Page—The Family Cibole*
The Oaken Cradle-SiiU,'Help Tour
Worn™. WUI Y “ U «•“
Third Page Religious Intelligence;
Presbyterian-Congregational-Methodist-Epiaeo
farian-Sli B seena~
Sixth Page—Correspondence :
Si a and a ? d Quaker Keith-Theologi
™S- l T^*^ tloa r.! Perl . odl< A? ls of Germany—
PrMblrtarfan. Thlng6 “ circular Letter of Holston
Seventh, Page— Scientific :
aI r ty * n Eofland—The Frozen Well—Mannfae-
Lerel Jf B ii£ n n en .f a <? d Modern Engineera-The
Tre^s, 1^6 ® oe3—Tko
THE REVIVAL WE NEED.
The war which has at length been brought
to a happy conclusion, produced no such
disastrous effects upon the churches of the
North, as many gloomily-disposed persons
predicted it would, and asserted it actually
was doing. Our own ohurch comes out of
the conflict some thousands stronger than
it went in, the last year of the war, es
pecially, being ‘one of prosperity, external
and internal, scarcely ever surpassed in her
history. Revivals are reported from over
one hundred qhurohes, some of them on the
most extensive scale, and of the most solemn
oharaoter. Missionary enterprises in the
outskirts of the States, in the new territo
ries, and among the needy populations of
our older seotions, have been zealously
pushed forward and liberally sustained.
Our contributions to foreign missions have
inoreased; our colleges and seminaries have
received most liberal endowments ; multi
tudes of churches have been relieved of
debt, and new ones rapidly put up; the
circulation of our newspapers has increased,,
and life and energy have pervaded the
whole spiritual body, whidh war was ex
pected utterly to paralyze. All branches
of„the„_ohurch in the,. loyal_ _p.arc o* OuT
oountry have shared more or less in this
advance.
Oar readers need not be reminded that
this is no surprise to us, or that it has fallen
out precisely as we expected and foretold.
The church of the North espoused the
Sacred cause of rightful authority, andtaught
the duty of sustaining" it at every needful
sacrifice of treasure and of life. It espoused
with fervour the cause of the oppressed,
and it grew stronger in the truth, and apter
for every other duty, as it sent forth its
heroes and. received back its martyrs, or
their mangled remains, from the fields of
bloody strife for liberty and law. It had
no unwonted difficulty to maintain its
spirituality, even amid the excitements of
critical battles; but rather sought to deepen
its humiliation, at such seasons, and to
draw nearer to Him with whom alone rested
the decision. While the army itself became
the scene of the most extensive Home Mis
sionary efforts, in which the whole Evan
gelical Church heartily participated, and
which produced the most' abundant and
satisfactory fruit in the conversion and re
formation of the soldiers. The churches
of the South, deeply apostatized, fierce in
rebellion, insanely cleaving to slavery as
an institution whioh it was their mission to
conserve, come out of the war with little
more thdn a name to live, shattered, dis
graced; their wioked prayers for the success
of a pro-slavery rebellion falling back un
answered, with a weight almost enough to
crush them into eternal silence and stupor.
A religion, one of whose cardinal doctrines
is that American slavery is right, and one
of whose chief practical tendencies is to
confirm a community in adherence to it, to
deaden their consciences to its enormity,
and to enconrage them in bloody rebellion
to sustain it, must go down, as surely as
one that justifies theft, murder, licentious
ness, polygamy, or the worship of any other
object than the' true God.
Many thoughtful and judicious Christians
have 'looked with deep, and prayerful, and
hopeful interest to the close of the war, as
a period when we might'expect more signal
displays of divine mercy than have been
enjoyed for many years past. We rejoice
that such a hope has been cherished all
through these years of war. It is itself an
omen of good—a light of dawn, which must,,
sooner or later, be followed by the full day.
The war is over; its deep necessities, its
great excitements, press upon us no longer.
We need the revival for .which we have
been longing* The Southern churches
greatly need it. Not one of them acknow
ledges itself guilty for its open espousal of
treason and rebellion. Their crushing
disasters have not awakened their conscien
ces. They nurse a wrathful sense of recti
tude in their wicked course. They haugh
__ /
Series, Vol. 11, ISTo. 36.
tily repudiate the idea of a return to the
Northern churches on the condition of re
pentance. They are checking any tenden
cy to sincere repentance among the South
ern people. Of all the ecclesiastical lead
ers of the South, but one has been reported
as taking the attitude of repentance and
confession. A mere newspaper report has
travelled from New Orleans to Boston, ac
cording .to which the notorious, nay, in
famous Dr. B. M. Palmer, on the 16th of
July last, in the pulpit of his church, from
which, nearly five years ago, he pronounced
his well known treasonable thanksgiving
discourse, did, explicitly and frankly, ac
knowledge that he and his Southern friends
were verily guilty for their rebellion, that
the Lord had rebuked them for their sin,
and that they must now turn from their
evil ways, and submit to the rightful
authority of the land. This story has been
current for weeks among the newspapers,
unaccompanied with confirmation or denial.
Most earnestly do we hope it may prove
true. For ourselves, whatever the civil
government might still feel it necessary to
do in such a case, as officers in the church,
we should be prepared to take down every
barrier, and pronounce every condition of
church recognition and forgiveness, satisfied
by such a confession. Most earnestly do
we hope it is true, for we should see in it
the beginning of a revival of pure and un
defiled religion in the South. Revival, so
called, among churches still swamped in
an apostacy of rebellion and pro-slavery
unrepented of, is not impossible, nor may
it be devoid of some signs of genuineness,
but it will prove its spuriousness, as a whole,
by gendering to more rebelliousness of
spirit, and by keeping up cruel and un
christian distinctions against the African
race.
The North and the whole nation needs
revival in this hour of re-construotion, so
full 04 high possibilities, so full, too, of
peril. A strong, practical, efficient, re
ligious influence was never more urgently
neededan-forgning tile mt'Uimaf polmeg-than'
now. Prejudice against the colored race'
in the minds'of conquered rebels and tlfeir
sympathizers was, perhaps, never so strong,
as at this "moment of their emancipation.
And many loyal people who rejoice in eman
cipation as a result of the war, are in danger
of sharing in the prejudices, and of falling
in yith the counsels of the enemy, when
any step further in redressing the wrongs
of this oppressed people is proposed. We
want a revival that shall sweep away, with
its breath of true Christian philanthropy,
every vestige of this prejudice, so hateful
to God, who made of one blood all the
nations of men, and so contrary to the
teachings and example of Jesus of Naza
reth. We need a revival which shall be
followed by the broad recognition of
humanity, on.such a scale that the con
temptible advocates of caste founded on
color, shall at length see a Christian country
to be no suitable place for' teaching the
superstitious and oppressive tenets of Bud
hism, or the huge tyranny of the priests
of Isis.
We meed a revival that shall reach
with cleansing influences, the whole arena
of local, state and national politios, until
personal integrity, sincere patriotism, so
briety, and fitness for the duties of office
be reckoned indispensable requisites for a
public position. We need a revival which
shall enthrone honor, truth and righteous
ness in’ the emporiums of trade and centres
of finance; which shall create a sound and
healthful public sentiment against the
crimes of the bold swindler, as well as
against the midnight burglar, against the
enormous frauds of the millionaire, as well
as against the small depredations of the
pickpocket and the dishonest huckster.
The consciences of a large class of our
financiers are almost hopelessly debauched
by the close approach to gambling of much
of their business. A reiniorcement of our
failing moral sense is most urgently needed,
lest our business centres become plague
spots ; lest the great corporations controll
ing our lines of internal improvement heap
up intolerable responsibilities to the Author
of the Fourth and Sixth Commandments.
Our church members, engaged in various de
partments of business need feel the influx of
this new tide of moral ptrehgth, and to hold
firmly the positions of honor and truth
amid the convulsive heavings of unprinci
pled and rapacious worldliness. Lamartine,
after the failure of the French Revolution
of 1848, declared that the*fatal defect of
French character.,which made a permanent
French republic impossible, was lack of
conscience. Want of conscience is a defect
so vital that it may not only prevent the
formation, but may frustrate all efforts at
the reconstruction of a republic already
formed. And such renewal of National
conscience as we need, can only be the fruit
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1865.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HARRISBURG, PA.
of genuine, wide-spread revival. It is vir
the that springs from evangelizing faith. It
is the gift of the Spirit.
Many more features might be added to
this imperfect draught of the Revival which
the Church and the Nation peed. Other
dangers and necessities might be portrayed;
as the rampant atheism of one part of our
foreign population, and the abject supersti
tion of another; the call upon our pious
laymen for increased devotion and readiness
to aid in supplying the demand for gospel
labor, especially among the freedmen and
Tn the BOOTH, irnicn so largely exceeds-the
supply of ministers; the need of some effi
eient prudent system of evangelical -effort
among the neglected, irreligious, Sabbath
breaking masses of our large cities, and the
general comprehensive need of a stirring
up to specific Revival efforts of some sort
in every part of the Church. These are
connected topics well worthy of considera
tion.
Pray for a great national outpouring of
the Holy Spirit. Pray that it may perma
nently raise the moral sentiment of the peo
ple,- and may bring forth fruit in the
righteous, humane, and noble policy of the
nation towards every class of its citizens, in
the honor and integrity of its business men,
and in the tempering of avarice and of luxu
rious habits to a moderation consistent with
the name and the safety of a Christian Re
public. Pray that it may deepen-the piety
and consecration of the Church, and that
it may both fully rouse her to the greatness
of her present responsibilities and qualify
her manfully to meet and to discharge
them.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
HARRISBURG, FA.
This Church was organized in the year
1794, under the pastorate of Reverend
Nathanael R. Snowden, which continued
till 1805. Rev. James Buchanan occupied
the pulpit from 1808 till 1.815. Rev.
William R. Dewitt, D.D., was called in
1818, and continues till the present time,
Rev. Thomas H. Robinson having been co
pastor since 1854.
Their former church edifice having been
destroyed by fire, its members, though
weakened by an “ old school” secession,
immediately entered upon the erection of
their present large, beautiful, and complete
house of worship. The edifice is built of
brick, in the Norman style, and is located
on Market Square. It was dedicated
March 18, 1860.
The building is one hundred and thirty
six by seventy-two feet, including the
lecture-room. The audience-chamber is
seventy-six by fifty-eight feet, exclusive of
the choir gallery and the pulpit recess, and
contains one hundred and thirty-eight
pews, holding about seven hundred per
sons. There are no side galleries.
The light for the evening service, from
the argand burners in the ceiling is thrown
through ground glass. The pulpit -recess
is lighted by day by means of a skylight
behind the arches, and at night by gas
light in the same manner. At no point in
the audience room is any burner visible.
The effect is very happy. The pulpit re
cess is deemed by all who have seen it, to
be a model of architectural taste and
beauty. Above the desk itself, which pro
jects from the face of the building some
three feet, rise three arches, the central
one much the larger. These arches are
supported by two pillars, and two half
pillars at the point of union with the main
wall of the building, and with the light
from behind the arches streaming down by
day (from the gas-light by night), they are
thrown out into beautiful relief and clear
ness. I believe it is a principle among
architects that the science of acoustics de
mands that an audience-room should, in
length, breadth and height, be constructed
on multiples of thirteen. Whether our
architect intended it or not, the room very
olfsaely.meets the demand, being in height
two by_thfrtgen, breadth four by thirteen,
length six by thirteen, or very nearly. At
all events, after nearly five years’ experi
ence in the, use of the room, I can testify
that, both for speaking and hearing, it is a
model. The voice of a moderate speaker
is heard clearly, (if he speaks clearly?)
The room cannot be improved in this re
spect. We are all gromingly delighted
with our church, though we thought it
almost unsurpassed when, with glad hearts,
we entered and dedicated it.
In addition to the main tower, some two
hundred and six feet high, and of the
choicest proportions, there are, as you ob
serve by the picture, two smaller ones,
mere turrets, in front, while the side of the
building'is ver/'tastefully ornamented with
minarets.
The building is mainly of brick. There
is, however, a large amount of brown stone
in its, structure, the base course, the win
dow sills, the projection on the tower and
turrets, while' the window and cappings,
the cornices, etc., are galvanized iron in
stone imitation.
The plastering of the "audience chamber
is pure white, and the stained glass of the
windows is but slightly stained, in modest
colors.
J• 0. Hoxie, of your city, was tie archi
tect. Y ours, very truly,
NORTHERN MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH.
- F<jr many years the South has been sealed
agains all Northern ministers who had not
Southern principles. And all agencies for
evangelizing the South have had to be
emasculated before they could be put into
operation there. Not simply legalized
forms of prosecution, but mob violence of
the most malignant sort, laid wait for the
humblest teacher of a creed inconsistent
with American slavery. We looked, and
had a right to look, for an entire revolution
in this respect as the result of the war. It
has been a war of ideas; and the failure of
the military demonstration of the South, is,
or if real, ought to be, a failure and a con
sequent disappearance of the South as such,
of Southern ideas, a Southern policy, Sou
thern leaders, organizations for keeping
alive the Southern spirit, and of course
a Southern church. •'
The grievously blind and mistaken policy
of the Government which encourages“the
hopes of rebels and revives the idea of a
sectional South in their minds, threatens
also to re-establish the old blockade of
Northern, or rather National, principles,
and to keep out of the South the represen
tatives of the loyal and freedom-loving
churches of the North. Southern churches
are reviving; Southern religious newspa
pers are coming into' circulation; Southern
bishops are writing arrogant epißtles to the
G-enesee Evangelist, Noj 1007
North,and arraigningtheNorthern churches
for demanding of them acknowledgment of
wrong and repentance of the sin of rebel
lion. Every thing betokens a fixed pur
pose to maintain a strictly sectional organi
zation, to draw closely the old lines of di
vision, and to use the church as a powerful
educator of such a new South as can be
gathered out of the wasted fragments of the
old. - -
This is without doubt a great disappoint
ment to the loyal Christian people of the
North. They could not have foreseen that
the half-dead serpent of sectionalism would
be thus warmed into life again by the beams
of a misplaced executive clemency. They
had long looked with, pity upon the moral
destitutions of the poor whites and the
slaves of the South. The destitutions were
great, but-as long as the slave-power con-,
tinued in the ascendant, they were almost
entirely shut out from them. With the
downfall of that power, they expected the
obstacles to the proclamation of the unmu
tilated Gospel of Christ would be-over
thrown. In the secret heart of the loyal
Christian people of the North, the war was
felt to be one of the Missionary providences,
so to speak, of which modern history has
furnished so many striking examples. It
was forcing off fetters from body and mind,
from white and black. When Lee surren
dered, it was almost like the overthrow of
a Chinese wall of exclusiveness. A vast
semi-heathen population, say six millions
in number, lay open, as we thought, to our
efforts. Vast demands we thought would
be made upon our supplies of money and
men, and the only difficulty we now antici-'
pated, was a lack of means and of spirit to
meet this sudden expansion of our field.
T. H. Robinson.
But shall the North, indeed, be thus ex
cluded for perhaps another quarter of a cen
tury from a held so wide, so needy, so im
portant, so near P Shall victory open the
South to commerce but not to freedom oi
ideas ? to the National tax-gatherer but not
to the Northern preacher and colporteur ?
We do not believe the Northern churches
will so easily abandon their precious hope
of thoroughly evangelizing those six millions
of poor whites and freed blacks whom the
triumphant bayonets of our brave soldiers
have just made accessible to a higher civil
ization. But the case is a serious one. It
is deserving of deliberation, prayer, and
consultation among the evangelical denomi
nations of the North, who are preparing, in a
loyal and .anti-slavery spirit to enter the
missionary field of the South. Proper rep
resentations should be made to the Govern
ment, as to the peril of allowing churches
to reorganize on the identical basis of the
rebellion, and for the sole purpose of keep
ing alive what is left of the spirit of the
South. Due vigilance should be used to
wards the reconstructing States, lest laws
be left unrepealed on the statute books in
imical to the safety of Northern preachers
teachers, and agents; and plans should be
concerted by which the various loyal socie
ties might share in each other’s experience
and support each other in cases of difficulty.
We oannot but feel that the situation is
sufficiently grave and embarrassing to call
for an unusual amount of wisdom and ot
Of course, it will be impossible for poli
ticians and ecclesiastics of the South to re
store the old barriers, in their original
strength. They went down with the ram
parts of Donelson and Vicksburgh, of At
lanta, Fort Fisher, and Richmond. They
went down with slavery. But for years and
years, these leaders, restored.to power by a
thoughtless exercise of clemency, may keep
alive prejudices, suspicions, and animosities,
and may nurse a hostile public sentiment,
as effectual in excluding the religious and
educational influences of the 1 North, as
those laws which they once enforced by the
authority of the Supreme Court of the
United States. If these churches of the
defunct Confederacy once reorganize on
their former rebel basis, solely as Southern
churches; if their pulpits resound with de
nunciations of Northern radicalism ; if
Northern societies, Northern newspapers,
and Northern teachers, are preached, voted,
and planned against, as dangerous to the in
terests of the South ; if all the energies of
these leaders and their churches are to be
applied in resuscitating and in working the
publishing, mission, and education societies
they started as rebels, then we prophesy
that the colporteur or pioneer of Northern
mission or tract societies will often abso
lutely want for common hospitality among
the so-called Christian people of the South;
will plead, against mob violence, his Ameri
can citizenship with less effect than Paul
plead his Roman citizenship, and will have
to be wary indeed, lest he feel, in darker
and severer forms, the malignity of the
vengeance whioh the assassination of Mr.
Lincoln and the atrocities of Andersonville
have not satiated.
TERMS.
Pot &nnum, in Advance:
By Man, $3. By Carrier, *3 50
Fifty cents additional, after three months.
Clubs*—Ten or more papers, sent to one address,
payable strictly in advance and in one remittance:
ByMail, $2 50 per annum. By Carriers,s3perannum.
Ministers and Ministers 9 Widows, $2 in ad
vance.
Home Missionaries, $l5O inadvance.
Fifty cents additional after three months.
Remittances by mail are at our risk.
Bostagre.— Five cents quarterly, in advance, paid
by subscribers at the office of delivery.
Advertisements —l 2% cents per line for the
first, and 10 cents for the second insertion.
One square (one month) .. : $8 00
<4 two months „ 5 50
three " 756
o six “ .12 oo
> one year .18
The following discount on long advertisements, in
for three months and upwards, is allowed r
Uver 20 lines, 10 per cent off; over 50 lines, 20 per
cent.; over 100 lines, 33% per cent. off.
looking for help from above. The South
must not be left to the dreadful hallucina
tion which its leaders still seek to keep
alive in the people; it must not be allowed
morally to rot as the mere caput mortuum. of
a pro-slavery society; it must not be left in
all the pitiable need of Bibles, religions
books, and religious papers, of sanctuary
accommodations and of educational privi
leges in which exhausting war and crushing
defeat has left it. The South, black
and white, must be evangelized, and the
greater part of the work mnst be done and
will be done by the loyal North.
CAN THEY TAKE CARE OF TIJEM-
SELVES 1
We do not know whether any oandid man
is yet asking this question in regard to the
freedmen of the South. To most reflecting
persons, it would have seemed superfluous
to ask it of a race, which, as slaves, had
been taking care of their masters and them
selves too for two hundred years. Or, if
it really seemed necessary, in order to keep
the colored laborers of the South at steady
and profitable employment, that their per
sons should be under the control of a more
intelligent class, that delusion must have
vanished from every unprejudiced mind
upon learning the eminently satisfactory
results of the memorable experiment made
with" the escaped slaves of South Carolina,
on the islands of * the coast two years ago.
That colony of escaped slaves will make
the Sea Islands of South Carolina more
famous than the long staple cotton which
they produce. They have a hero to boast
of, too, who could not only take care of
himself and his family, but could bring
them, with the rebel vessel he had in
charge, right under the guns of Fort Sum
ter, and deliver vessel, guns and crew to
the national blockading fleet off the harbor.
Robert Small, of the steamer Planter,
proved his ability to take care of the vessel,
and his bravery in employing it for Gov
ernment uses, to be so superior to that of
the white officer who for a. time had charge
of it, that the'loyal black man was made
master of bis own prize, and white men
served cheerfully with him in managing
the vessel.
Almost any number of our dailies con
tains evidence that the colored people of
the South are far more independent of Gov
ernment aid than their poor white neigh
bors. In almost every instance in which a
comparison could be made, the result has
been most conspicuously in favor of the
colored race. A newspaper correspondent
writes that at Chattanooga, Tennessee, of
947 persons receiving Government aid, only
forty-three are colored, and nine§ hundred
and four are white. Supposing the popu
lation to be half white and half colored,
this would show the negro of Chattanooga
to have more than twenty times the capacity
of the poor whites for taking care of him.
self. Which of the two classes has the
best right to share in managing the affairs
of a nation of independent, self-reliant free
men ? The Government, which allows the
thriftless poor whites of Chattanooga the
right of suffrage, while it utterly refuses
the privilege to their colored neighbor,
simply because of a difference in the cuticle
of the latter, will fifty years from hence be
regarded as under a hallucination of the
most amazing and perilous sort.
The report of the Ereedmen’s Bureau
for Mississippi, dated Vicksburg, August
15, contains the following statement:
The colonies of freedmen working the land
assigned them at Davis Bend, Camp Hawley,
near Vicksburg, DeSoto Point opposite, and
at Washington, near Natchez, are all doing
well; their crops are maturing fast; as harvest
time approaches, the number of rations issued
is reduced, and they are compelled to rely
on their own resources. At least ten thousand
bales of cotton will be raised by these people,
who are raising crops on their own account.
The total number of freedmen in the State is
estimated at 346,000, of whom only 3,000 are
receiving assistance from Government.
Important Judicial Decision. The
contraband liquor trade of Massachu
setts is thus far foiled in its last dodge
for evading the prohibitory law. A
Boston paragraph of August 29th says:
In the case of the Commonwealth vs.
Holbrook, which was carried to the Su
preme Judicial Court, on the ground
that the defendant had the right to sell
intoxicating drinkß under a license from
the United States, the court decided
that payment to the United States of a
fee for a license, and a revenue duty or
tax, does not exempt the defendant from
responsibility for violating the criminal
laws of the Commonwealth.”
The Central Church, Wilmington,
has a new chapel building 20 by 54 feet,
in a forward state on Rodney street, one
of the most imposing sections of the’ city
of Wilmington. This is the second
chapel belonging to the Central Church,
amd the third connected with our denomi
nation in that city.