nwrirau 7gr.rslitnieria
New Series, Vol. V, No. 53.
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THURSDAY, DE,CEMI3ER 31, 1868.
ENLARGEMENT IW THE EDITORIAL.
CORPS. .
Among the measures designed to increase the effi
ciency and attractiveness of bur paper at this time,
mir readers will weloome the new arrangement by
w h ich a large and distinguished corps of writers is added
to the Editorial Department. As the designatiim &these
brethren has met the cordial approval of the Pastera'
Association of this city, they will be known as
THE EDITORIAI. COMMITTEE.
Their dotitributiona Will be generallTaeconipanied
with the of the writere. , Their rmmes-are•es
follows:—.
Rev. S. IC - Ifuniphrey, D.D., Pastor of Calvary
Chnreh.
Rev. Ilefiriek Johnson, D.D., Pastor of the First
. •
Church.
Rev. Raul..liturch. Pastor of Clinton lit.
Church.
Rev. Pdtei:Stryker, D.D., PaNtok 'of N. Bread
St. Church. •
Rev. George Wlawell, D.D., Pastor of Green
. .
Hill March.
Rev. E. E. Adams, 'D. D., Prof. In Linealn Ent
versitar.
Rev. Samuel W. Duffield, Special Cor
respondent.
Mr. Robert E.• Thompson will ioritinue to
act as Editor of the News Department.
Correspondents in every Presbytery. arid Sy
nod will promptly furnish us with fresh items of
news from their respective &Mi.
SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HIGH
CHURCH MOVEMENTS OF THEE DAY.
Inside of thceonfeesional and thoroughly or
churches of Christendom, the current is
setting with remarkable strength and uniformity
towards an increased Atrictnese in interpreting•
and enforcing the erms of fellowship. High:
Churchism is almost everywhere. in 'the ascend.:
ent. Beginning with the Romish Church, we see
on every hand evidence of a great advance of Ut
tramontanism. Of the Galilean Liberties of that
eliurch, once so famous and' tso cifficient, nothing
now known or heard. The French' hierarchy
are, with trifling exceptions, among the most
zealous supporters of peed authority, .ThettOiti
of Bossuet hai'lleen replaced by that of Dutpanz
loup ; and if the vacillating policy of Napoleon
111. towards the Church reminds us of Louis
XIV., the Spanish Eugenie stealthily labours to
inoculate France with the bigotry of the women
and of the reigning dynastiel of' her own coun
try. The question of the temporal power`cif the
Pope with which the whole Catholic world rang
at the time of the establishment of the kingdom
of Italy, and which:was regarded by many as in
diating the'rite of a new and liberal era in the
Church, has ended in the.complete Overthrow of
the progressive and liberal party. The utmost'
servility to the Pope has marked all the recent
demonstrations of sentiment - in that Church.
Such is the sentiment that inspired the great ,
Catholic congress at Malines, Belgium ; such was
also the tone of the gathering of the 587 cardi-'
nals and bishops,,and the three hundred inferior
clergy, with the one hundred thousand laity who,
i n the summer of 1867, celebrated the Eighteenth
Centenary of the Martyrdom of St. Peter and
tit. Paul in Rome. 'And such is morally certain
to be the temper of the General Council sum
moned at Rome f0r . 1869. The Clarion voice of
Passaglia has long ago been quieted, and he; and
for aught we know, his tens thousand followers
have abjured Liberalism and now walk peniten
tially in the ways of their Ultramontane leaders.
And all the late poweiful liberal movements in
Italy, Austria - and Spain Are recognized as hostile
to the Romish Church, producing no other effect
within her true palelthan to. intensify the symp
toms we are describing.
In the Anglican - and American Episcopal
Church, it is plain the tendencies are.in the same
direction. The Low Church party here have fought
a valiant fight, and have met a Waterloo defeat.
Inside the Episcopal Church they have no long
er any appropriatemourse but submission. Hence,
as in the. ease.of t,he chivalrous Passaglia, we ex
pect Messrs. Trig, f Cotton Smith and others,
gracefully to accept 7 the situation, and by a walk
of churchly propriety in a few years to make
their recent demonsArations• for liberty no more
remembered than the transient eddy in the riv
or's course; or else they must show the courage
of the true Reformer, by t forsaking what they
have tried in Viiia to purify, and of course leav
lug it higher and drier thin before.
The rugged, unbending ortbodozy of the Pres
byierian churches of, Scotland,and ate North of
Ireland, of the English, Presbyterian Church and
of their coloniaL3'epresentatiyes,4 - well• l4 nown.
There are genuine , liberal influences at work in
the Scottish Chnr,ahas,partioulariy ip the ITnitsd
Presbyterian and the Established, but,their effect
upon the whole body, is slight; ; and all—liberal,
and rigorous—atnong them, wet fettc., with' and
breath would 'untie' in denditicirig
•
Jo n A.Weir
15ju13 , 69
clause of the Adopting Act as loose and danger
ous. " Would you not," asked the writer not
long ago, of Principal Fairbairn, " say that in
any sense Christ died for all ? " "*e would not
use that langdage," said the benignant Principal.
And then he proceeded, with an elaborate •and
scholastic circumlocution, to present his view and
at the same time to avoid that, Scriptural and
simple declaration.
And what do • we see among the' Reformed
°hutches in our own land ? Union of ele
nie.nts, of various degrees of Confessional 'rigidity,
now tolerably well welded in one Mass, and
•cool
ing down into the cast-iron features of " United
PreSbyterianism." It is acknowledged that the
liberal men, who entered with some enthusiasm
into this union, hoping -that the result would be
a body of decidedly liberal-orthodox type, have'
been grievously disappointed. Only another and
stronger buttress has been added to the structure of
psaim,singing exclusivism in our land. And the
smaller bodies of Presbyterians in our country
who have refermed and re-reformed, and refined
and re-refined upon each other, to : distressing mi
nuteness, are little else than an ascending scale
up the dreary and barren heights of eiclusivisui,
each little plateau being narrower than the one be
neath it, and all ending,=some'think,'very near to
heaven—others say, Close to the edge of eternal;
snows The most liberal. [?l' of these smaller
bodies has gibbeted itself before the publie, by
attempting tho edclesiastidal degradation of per
haps the Most distinguished, large-hearted, • and
generous Christian man of our country, who hap
pened to be in its communion,—an orth odoi
Presbyterian and an exemplar which any churCh
might congratulate itself to have produced He
and his church and, his noble pastor have been
cast out, because they t sang ", Rock- of Agesf
because they allowed occasional communion, or
because they refused to deal , with illr. Stuart for
so doing.
And where .to-day are the earnest and evangel
ical Dr. Bomberger and his 'Associates, who re
mained in. the German , Refortried Church, when
akponlielliewstaio and..l3.ergleituit,iv
pair, still hoping that the leaven of 'a Scriptural
piety would triumph over the Romeward tenden
cies then developing ? To-day, where "are.they?
Trampled in the dust. Overpowered by .the
churchly current of the time. They too must
surrender or go out.
The Baptists hug their ,exclusivism•in. terms of
membership, as closely , as ever; and the Method
ists, by their ambitious church erections and new
ly adopted pew-system, show• a drift in the same
general direction. In the Lutheran Church
alone, among recent
_examples, has the preponder
ance been so decidedly on the side of free'evan
genes' sentiment, that the High Church _party,
after a long period of agitation, have been •com
pelled to take the position of seceders and to or
ganize an outside Church.
We know the age is habitually regarded as one
of progress, of• expansion of ideas, of the dis
carding of what is supported by authority and
antiquity alone ; but it is a startling and a far
from encouraging fact, that large and increasing
portions of the Church have their faces turned
entirely in the opposite direction, and that church
movements, instead of being properly "progress"
are largely of the nature of medieval restoration,
and such as utterly to 'put the Churches out of
sympathy with the wide advancing sweep of mo
dern thought and civilization.
It is under these critical and ominous circum
stances, that our own branch is called on to con
sider the propriety of reunion with another, from
which we were cut off in an outburst of this very
spirit of High Ohurchism. Shill the reunion of
Old and New School be only another indication
of this general tendency, of our churches'back to
doctrinal rigour and enslavement to man-mad°
systems ? Most solemn is the duty laid upon us
in this aspect of the case. We deem it morally
certain that a reunion in which the well-known
liberal-orthodox tone of our' body is quietly.ig
nored or deliberately sacrificed, will turn out in
the end one of the most important reinforcements
yet made to the backward movement in the
Church If the wholesome and Scriptural liberty,
which has ever shone like a star of promise upon
the forehead of our Church, be removed ever so
gently and;buried ever so decently, and if thus
despoiled and discrowned, we consentto enter into
the reunion, we shall beguilty of aiding in a re
trograde movement, against which' our whole his-
tory is a protest. We shall remove from the cir
cle of organized American: Churches, a body
which is very much like the UnitedStates.among
the monarchies and, empires of the •world, a 'stim-:
ulating example of the sleety and wholesomeness
of free institutions in connection , with thorough
loyalty to order ~, and 6 , 4 We shall i help to
build up ~a great Presbyterian, organization;the
inevitable drift , of livhich e with its ,voluminous
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1868.
"Standards pure and simple" will be to increasing
rigour and High Churchism. A Basis of Re.
union recognizing t our liberal principles and spirit
•
has been twice defeated in the Old School Pres
byteries, solely on account of this very feature.
Can any one misunderstand' the nature of Re
union on the Standards pure and simple after two
such defeats.?
"I'M GROWING OLD."
'Never will I forget the expression of a friend.
- His sparkling eye lost its usual brightness, And
his sunny face became very grave as he remarked
tome with a - sigh" Oh, I feel sad when, I think
am growing old." He was ; perhaps fifty years
of age—a: healthy, yigorons man, likely to live a
score or more of years.longer.', But he was past
tlitymetidian of life. 'llii'ha travelled up the .
hill onone side and *as going.down on the other.
He was.not an. old Man—would have laughed at
any one who might have ealletihim such. But he
knew his days were Imre ,than c half ,spent, and
after a little period Hof fleetinglime he would be
: .1.
in eternity..
That was not all. ,He was a very excellent
husband, father and friend. He was an upright
•
man. He was virtuous and , noble. He was in
dnitriou.s and thrifty., H i e was a respecter of re
h ion. But he was noChrtstsan. He made no
pretenaion to piety. He was living as many in
telligent businessmen arountits live--;"without
God and Without hope."
0, that look and ., those woids, what volumes
thir revealed It Was near the i close of the year.
He felt how quickly,the years were passing, each
one seeming shorter than its redecessor. He
realized that he was in the ciirrent which was
carrying him steadily , rapidly,with fearfully in
'creasing velocity to the vortex, of ruin. It was
a confession of a misspent life. The one thing
needful had been nialected, everything else had
been Attended to, but this was put aside for a
convenient season He had pioperty, respecta
bility, intolligence,,all that waomeessary for,this
life, , But what 141 he .for k do life to come?
What riches to carry with hitirtoeternity? What
respectability that would avail him in the divine
presence ? What wisdom that would enable him
to render up his account at the bar of God ? Of
all this he was destitute. Hence his 'mournful
lamentation, "I feel sad to think I am, growing
old."
.Header, the year 1868 is nearly gone. A few
more 'hours and it will be, numbered with the
hoary past. And you are growing older. Whether
you are now a child, a youth, or a man, whether
a 1
in life's morning, noon, or .night, you are growing
old. How does this thought affect you? Are
you sad? You ought to .be, if not a Christian.
You ought to be alarmed. You ought to fly, as
we urged our friend to do, to Christ who will re
ceive you, even at the eleventh hour. You ought
to do works meet for repentance. You ought
with all your heart to believe on Jesus as the sin
ner's only help. Pray do this! Will you not ?
Do it NOW. Wait not for 1869. You may never
see it. '
But if you are a Christian, however humble
your position, you need not feel sad at the lapse
of time. You 'should rejoice that every moment
bears, you on from these scenes of toil and danger,
and trial; and death, to the season of rest, to the
land of bliss, to the home of immortality, where
there is no more trouble and time—whether the
inhabitant will never grow sick or old. Where
GOd's'people will renew their youth, and in the
fijeginess and beady and joy of young life live
forever. P. S.
PRINCETON AND NER' HAVEN are the two
poles of American Calvinism. It is curious to
observe the estimate which each forms of the
other, and not without a special interest to those
who keep in the broad central current of Calvi n _
istic tradition, avoiding alike either extreme, the
rockbound shore, or the swampy, flat shoals.
What Princeton thinks of New Haven we have
been told ad nauseam. Certain men and certain
periodicals• seem to have no other raison d'etre
than to denounce a " man of straw" which they
call " Taylorism." What New Haven thinks of
Princeton is thus forcibly put in the last number
of The New Englander :
" It is true that Dr. Taylor was a life-long op
ponent of the Princeton theology. Gratuitous
condemnation for Adam's sin ; congenital sin in
flicted upon the sinless by a judicial decree prior
to their existence.; sin meriting damnation, be-
fore the least consciousness of a rule of right;
absolute natural impotency of the soul to throw
off the bondage to evil thus engendered in it;
literal endurancp of the legal, penalty by Christ,
but only for a part of mankind, selected by mere
will, without reference to results in the general
good.; right of this friction to claini salvation as
a , m4tter of I stria justice, their punishment hav
ing been endured; con7ersion of this fraction by
dint of creative omnipotence acting irresistibly
within their -owls ;
perdition of all the rest, ju
diciously inflicted for a sin done before they were
created, for propagated sin which they could not
prevent, and for not believing in an atonement
never provided for them, and when all power of
thus believing had been extirpated from their
scuts, through the necessary effect of an ances
tor's transgression ; this system, Dr. Taylor
thought, in its logical implications, blots out hu
man probation and with it the moral government
of God."
AVAILETH MUCH."
There is a marvel,of meaning in these modest
words. They let us into the secrets of God—to
the very hidings of his power. whey tell us of
great possibilities. No limit can be set to their
reach and significance and efficacious warrant.
And not until we have sounded the depths of all
the promises, and dared go to the full extent of
their divine sanction of liberty and boldness in
our,plea before God, will we know how " much"
the, right kind of prayer " availeth.'! " Ask
what ye will and it shall be done unto you," that
much. " All things are possible to him that be
lieveth," tliat.much. " Greater works than these
shall ye do, because I go to my Father," that
much. " All - power is given unto Christ in
heaven and in earth," and prayer simply deter
mines the exhibitions of that power. Power to
open the spiritual heaven even as Elijah opened
the natural heavens. Power to secure for the
simplest instrumentality divinest efficiency, and
to command' the presence of Him who alone can
wring frOm men the cry, " What shall we do ?"
Power to win from yielding omnipotence what
the Syrophcenician mother won, and to lead the
Creator of the heavens and the earth to say to
the poor sinful creature, " Thy will be done !"
But what kind of praying ih itrthat - takes on
such potency as this ? Theie is a 'vast deal of
prayer in the world. The amount of it is out
of all proportion to achieved and manifest re
sults. Enough is•seen of success in petition to
keep us well assured of the fact that there is no
power comparable' for one moment with the pow
er of believing heart pleading God's promises.
But enough is seen of failure, also; to convince
us that we too often pray as " one that beateth
the air.'!
Now, what is the matter with our praying ?
If-prayer is such a potential thing, why are 'we
not oftener mighty and prdvailing Israels ? Next
week the Church throughout the world is ex
pected to bow at her altars and:pour out her
heart to God. For seven successive days the
whole earth is to be belted with prayer. Why
should it not be belted with answer to prayer
Why should not every gathering of believers
everywhere, in every city, and town, and clime, and
country, in the use of pentecostal means, have
pentecostal power and pentecostal results ? The
necessity is the same. The one great, pressing,
urgent want of the Church of. God, to-day, is
just, what was the one, great, pressing, urgent
want, of the Church at Jerusalem. The impera
tive need of that assembly, is our imperative
need. To do the soul-winning work they did, we
must be clothed with the power that came down
upon them.
In what single respect are the conditions of
power and success altered? In no respect what
ever, save that we are far more advantaged than
that Church at Jerusalem. , They had no expe
rienced past of blessing, from the 'presence and
power of the Spirit. They had no history all
crowded full with demonstrations of the exceed
ing might of the Holy Ghost. No Saul had
been slain, then, on his way to Damascus breath
ing out threatenings and slaughter. No cities
had been turned upside down, no continents had
been shaken, no whole nations had been born to
God through the operative energies of this
mighty and transforming Spirit. They had a
promise, and this they pleaded before God They
had a " name,w l by the authority of which they
came to the Mercy-seat. But they were yet to
learn its precious and wonderful efficacy with the
Father.
The question, therefore, is not whetherwe can
possibly have any such results as were witnessed
then. No one who reads God's word can doubt
the possibility. The question is—and it is one
for every man, and woman, and child who is
cherishing a hope of everlasting life through
Jesus Christ—it is one that must be asked and
answered by all of us and each of us in full view
of our associated and personal responsibility to
God and our relations to the multitude of the
unsaved on every side of us--the question is,
Are we willing to do now what, the Church did
then to sec ure
, the baptism of the. Holy Ghost?
That is a very simple question, and it ought to
have but one answer.
Tice,Scriptural record gives us the conditions
of the k'neeess of the petitioners inAhat upper
Genesee Evangelist. No. 1180.
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Address:-1334 Chestnut Street
room at Jerusalem. They poured out their
hearts together. They poured out their hearts
in harmony. They poured out their hearts in
constancy. " These all, with one accord, conti
nued." Never a Church on earth went long
praying that way,with out a great blessing from God.
"These all." Every one was in his place.
No sense of loss, no feeling of discouragement
kept any one away. No one was attending to
secular concerns in those hours of prayer. All
business was set aside. Not a disciple was ab
sent. Not a murmurer or a fault-finder stayed
away because it was only a prayer-meeting!
Prayer was the duty and the delight of that ga
thering of believers, and, as far as the Word of
God tells us, nothing else but prayer.
"With one accord." They were not simply all
together—but all together for one object. Lite
rally, with the same mind. To be baptized of
God's Spirit was why they prayed'and what they
prayed for. We may be sure, therefore, they
did not go all around the world with their pray
ers, naming all imaginable subjects. Definiteness
and directness are demanded by that phrase,
":with one accord." The utter banishment of
all cause&of alienation also. There was no dis
cussing or- questioning, Who shall be first? It
is not at all to be believed, either, that any disci
ple sat coldly weighing in mental balance the li
terary merits of a fellow disciple's prayer, and
noting for future comment his infelicities of
speech, as if it were a performance for entertain
ment, instead of most reverent and - solemn ap
proach to God. •
"Continued." They kept . at it. It was not a
breath,, and away. They. .persisted diligently.
They persevered. How many
. days ? How long
must they wait ? No matter. That is God's
business—not theirs./ A .d we may well believe
those unanswered disciples grew there in that
upper chamber to wrestling Israels, as Jacob at
the ford' Jabbok, as Elijah on Mt. Carmel, as
Daniel in captivity, as the: Canaanitish mother
pleading for her. hild. They we're entering into
the meaning of prayer. They ware preparing
for - the *baptism: --And= it. cable at la.§.
with great power. Oh, the wrestlirs that were
crowned princes on that first coronation day of
the Christian Church I Prayer was answered,
expectation met, victory achieved. And for all
time the Church of the living :God was taught
how she might secure the presence and the power
of the Holy Ghost.
Such• praying never failed—never will fail.
Let but such prayer be bad the coming week—let
but our spirits break with such longing, and the
expectation of our souls shall not long be delayed.
"And it, shall come to pass that before they call,
I will answer; and while they are yet speaking,
I will hear." H. J.
THE unrepealed law of Massachusetts upon
the liquor traffic is still very stringent, and likely
to prove of the most salutary effect. Liquor deal
ers, it appears, have been cruelly, deceived in their
expectations of the sweeping effect of the repeal of
the prohibitory law, not believing that any statute
remained on the books by which their business
could be seriously trammeled. The Supreme
Court of the State has just decided that the law
known as the Liquor Nuisance Act is still in
force, which provides that
•" All buildings, places, or tenements, resorted
to'for prostitution, lewdness, or' illegal gaming,
or used for the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall
be deemed common nuisances." This law, it is
well known, allows the prosecution of both occu
pant and owner of the buildings so used. All
such cases where conviction has been recorded
have now been remanded for sentence, which is
generally $5O and costs.
This puts the brand of disrepute on the busi
ness most effectually, even if it does not materi
ally diminish its profits. The court also decided
that the ,defendant must prove that he has a li
cense,• and not that the complainant must prove
he has not.
sir The General Council [High Church] of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America,
lately in convention at Pittsburg, unanimously
resolved to make a reply to the Pope's address to
Protestants, and appointed a committee for the
purpose. It is to be made on the' Basis of the
Lutheran Confessions, in accordance with the
fundamental principles of the faith and policy on
which the General Council rests.
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