ite Jrcskjlmm
New Series, T . , w . ,
JonnWVeir
Strictly in Advance $2.50, Otherwise $3- )
Postage 20cts, to be paid where delivered, j
gracricatt gmlnstmait.
THURSDAY, 4ANUARY 7, 1869.
RETROSPECT.
There are few years in which men in all parts
of the civilized ,v;orld, and in all conditions of life,
have gone through more powerful excitements
from both inward apd outward causes than in, the
one just past., .Unusual extremes of heat and of
cold, of drpught and of moisture have been ex
perienced over vast regions. A winter of un
common severity and duration has been followed
by a summer, or rather by two months, of intoler
able heat. England, the land of perpetual mists,
simmered and sweltered under the burning rays
that shot from cloudless skies and that parched
her emerald fields to russet crispness for weeks.
Earthquakes of almost unprecedented extent and
violence shockedthe Southern hemisphere, and the
swaying of the ocean’s bed almost laid bare the
foundations of islands and of continents.
Great political agitations .accompanied these
physical demonstrations. In our own country,
the year has been one of| great and perilous ten
sion to our institutions and to the; principles of
every friend of humanity. We have passed
through an impeachment trial, which lasted ninety
days—from February to May—and which ended
in defeat, mortification and saddest revelation of
fraility in honored and trusted men. North and
South, for three quarters of the year, we have,
been fighting a rebellion, which, like a deeply
wounded and malignant reptile, still drew its .slow
length along. Only this year was the rebellion
which began in 1860. realty defeated; and there
was not a campaign in ail the four years' war,
which held the people in a more heart-.
thrilling expectation, than the, political,struggle,
just closed. . Violent,; bloodshed, assassination'
and outrage rpq riot in the South. A new re
bellion and the repudiation of the National Debt
were in the hearts and upon the lips of not a few,
and were not obscurely intimated in the platform,
of a party which sought; to sway the national
policy. The ,friends of hunjan rights and of.equal
justice in the country, passed through an agony
of effort and until the result was de
clared, and an overwhelming victory announced
for the right
While thus engaged in our own country, w e
have not been,unmindful of the great revolution
going forward in the niother country. If the.
crushing of the slaveholders’ rebellion was a re
mote consequence of the Declaration of Indepen
dence, the Ref'orijn movement in Great Britain
which tends to make coextensive
with taxation, may also.be regarded as. the late
born but legitimate child of the doctrines enun
ciated in that paper. Amid intense excitement
and with rioting and violence, the elections for
the First Parliament of the Reform have proceed
ed ; and it has been a trying feature of those
elections as of ours, that the enfranchised people
themselves have been drawn to vote in consider
able numbers against the policy that led to their
own enfranchisement, and humanity, had seemed,
to wait with suspended breath, until the last wave
of popular feeling had left its high-water mark
far up on the shore.
In Austria, the government has had to contend
with the whole power of the Romish priesthood,
in pushing onward its great reforms ; but it has
not hesitated'to maintain its own dignity against
the insolence of its rulers. In Italy, the
same or worse insolence has been rebuked by the
heavy penalties imposed upon the priestly insti
gators of the Barlctta massacre, tea of the ring T
leaders having been sentenced to the galleys for
eighteen years, and others for ten, eight, seven,
and lesser terms of years, according to the degree
of their guilt. Frunce still feels the heavy hand
of the despot, but her population scares in the
wide-spread excitement and s : rained uneasiness
of the times, cousdious of strength and quietly
aware of the rising tide which is everywhere over
whelming despotism, and which must soon break
in upon France. ’ 1
The great surprise of the year, and we might
9ay of the half cen’ ury, has been tlie bloodless
revolution in Spain. The common sentiment which
regards gravity and dignity as characteristic of
the Spaniard, had been justified in the grandest
manner, in this vast and peaceable movement.
The leaders have shown so much wisdom and so
much good principle, and.she people so much self
restraint, that wo are encouraged to hope for the
best results from the change. It is almost like a
dream to look back and see how, on the third of
September, we mentioned some new net of intol
erance. of the Spanish government, as a matter of
course; and how, in ten days from that date, the
revolution was complete; the most bigoted, most
ultramontane, the most abject of European peo
ples, as was supposed, had sprung in a bound, to
15ju1y69
an independent national existence, and to the plat
form of popular rights. Here, too, the pulse of the
people beats hurriedly, and the precise nature of
the political result is waited for. with painful
anxiety.
The year has been one of stir, excitement and
progress in the Church. Great revivals took place, -
extending even to the Universalist communities. In
the first four months of the year, somethinglike one
thousand revivals and twenty thousand conver
sions in the various evangelical churches, had
been reported, and the statistics of tho churches
show a very fair measure of increase. The lead
ing denominations have been urgent, as for several
years past, to bring their whole force, including
the laity and the women into the field, and great
gatherings, called Christian Conventions, have been
held, for the discussion of plans of work and for
provoking unto love and good works, which, with
some evils and drawbacks, have been productive
of good. Much activity in church-building has
prevailed. In our own body, the only branch of
beneficence which showed decided improvement
over the preceding ecclesiastical year, was that of
Church Erection, in which the receipts had arisen
from $19,000, to $50,000. In Chicago, a Church
Extension Commission has been formed among
the people of our Church, which aims at a fund of
$lOO,OOO. In this city, the Baptists have a com
mission for similar purposes and our own laymen
are busy at raising $105,000 for the same object.
The Methodists have this year completed .one of
the handsomest churches in the country, and are
engaged upon another in this city, of still richer
design .and, material. In Pittsburg, our own peo
ple have just dedicated the costliest structure be
longing to the denomination. . .
( On the other hand, the ( great causes of Church
beneficence of a more directly spiritual character
have languished,for want of means., p.u£,denpmi :
nation’s contributions to the,American Board fell
off $2,000, and our Home Missionary collections
had bju.t trifling increase.j A low, ( .estimate, too,
was sho.yyn, in,the amount of contributions, of the
literary interests of the Church. A zeal for the,
stones and timbers,of the walls of Zion
seems to have eaten up the people. A similar: dis
tressing want of funds is felt, by, the mission .en-,
terprises of the M. E.,. and the Old School, and
United, Presbyterian bodies. We all know what
a strenuous effort had to be.made .in the closing,
months of the fiscal year, ofj the American Board,
Lj raise barely enough tq keep it from a retro
grade movement. On the.other hand, new sour
ces of revenue are being opened.' Thus, the chilr,
dren of the church contributed to the O. S.
Board of Foreign Missions, in the year, over
forty-five thousand dollars, nearly one-sixth of
the whole amount. And the converts on hea
then ground, continue to give proofs of a measure
of self-consecration quite extraordinary in 'com
parison with the prevalent Christian standard. 1
Instances'of generous liberality to institutions
of learning have not been wanting ' this year,
though less frequent than in former years. Mes
srs. Wm. E Dodge and S. F. B. Morse have each
subscribed $lO,OOO to the Seminary
of Yale College. The Crozer Family have con
tinued their benefactions to the Baptist Seminary
at Upland. ' Mr. A. Pardee’s offer of $BO,OOO
more to La Fayette College to make up $200,000
had been very 1 nearly secured towards, the close of
tbe year, Mr. John A. Brown and Mr. Matthew
Baird of dur city b'eihg Among the liberal contri
butors to this result. The Drew M. E. Seminary,
endowed with $250,000 by a famous ■ railroad
speculator, was opened this year. Drs. Nelson
and Morris were made Professors of Lane Semi
nary, and Dr. Stille, and Rev. C. P. Krauth, D:D.,
inaugurated as Provost and Professor in the Col
legiate Department of Pennsylvania University.'
Most important to the ‘interests of education,
sound philosophy and evangelical religion in this
country is the arrival and installation as President
at Princeton College, of Rev. Dr. James McCosh,
formerly of Queen’s College, Belfast. Should his
years be prolonged, the whole land will feel the
wholesome Heaven of bis presence at this seat of
learning. An endowment of $60,000 was raised'
for his chair.
In a previous article, we spoke of the general
drift of Christendom toward a stricter Church
conformity and a more rigid doctrinal position;
upon this we shall make no additional comment.
A glance at the history of our own Church dur
ing the year and especially at the negotiations
for reunion, shows that we are drifting away from
the position of safe liberality and sharing in the
same general movement towards doctrinal rigid
ity. This appears in the indifference with which
the defeat of the liberal clause in the platform is
received by our press and presbyteries generally,
and by the content which is expressed in a plan
of reunion, from which all recognition of liberal
principles is excluded. It is at present uncertain
whether a portion of our Church sufficiently large
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1869.
to control its action is disposed to acquiesce in such
terms; but the drift of sentiment is pretty deci
dedly in that direction.
In our own Church, Bev. Gebrge Duffield, D.D.,
was-gathered to his'fathers, like a ripe : ear of
corn in'the fullness of the ydar, and of his own
honored! and useful 1 lifer. And' John Marsh,.D.D.,'
one of the early apostles of a
long and active life for the goodof his fellow men.
In the death-roll of the other branch,-we read
the ’names of George Junkidj- D/D.j P:
ley, D.D., Chairman of that portion of the Joint'
Committee on 1 Reunion,' Josdph ‘H. Jbhesj.B.D:/
and Matthew Newkirk. The Episc6pal l ‘bhtifch :
has lost her Senior Bishop, Hopkins of Vermont,
besides Messrs; Parvin and Rising by the cala
mity on the Ohio River. Among civilians, of
the dead, none were more ‘distinguished' than
Thaddeiife Stevens. The Standay schools and
choirs will jmiss the spirituaheomposer and'inde
fatigablc worker Bradbury- While from our own
side, we miss the genial, obliging, and wider-awake
publisher, Rodgers. Only God. is our dwelling
place in all generations.
dr; RESET COOKE.
This greatest of Irish Protestants has gone to
his rest. .Born in 1788 ( , in a small.farm-house
near the North Coast of Ireland, be entered the
ministry of the Irish Presbyterian • Church at a
time when that Church was divided into paltry
fragments, despised, and persecuted .by the domi
nant Church and the political powers, forced to
send her ministers to Scotland for an education,
unable to legally consecrate the.marriage, of her
children, and already threatened by the inroads'
of un-Christian heresy. He has left it more
united and powerful than in any other land, in
which the Presbyterian Church is. a power,
courted by tbe Established Church in the hour
, •J : "I '!,! I. J -Vi . J3.fr! ■uST HI
of her extremity,, respected and consulted by ,the
State on all legislative-questions in which her in
terests areyopcerned, furnishe|l with'endowed in
stitutions of lcarning.o,f high, Character, orthodox
beyond suspicion, and alreadyjfreginning to assert
herself as, a. powerand a name; jp-thejapd. And
to,, ;Cqoke,;ni9re ,jhan otheripne pian,',
these changes are owing. -;
Graduating at. Glasgow, he was. successively
pastor.at Dunean, Donegore, and ■ Killileagh, (in
1818,) before he attracted much attention among
his brethren, save as an effioient memberofthe
Synod of Ulster, who had ,earned the thanks of.
his brethren by his six years’-labor;,in the pre
paration of the “Book of •Discipline.*''' .About
a sixth of the ministers of the Synod, including
the Clerk, were avowed Arians,. while' the lati
tndinarian Synod of Munster, with, its Presbytery
of Antrim, avowedly held, the same opinions,
and were.. ,in correspondence with the English
Arians—those nominal Presbyterians and; degen
erate descendants of Baxter and Howe. In-1821
an English Arian landed and began to preach
his heresies through the Province, and had the
ill-luck to come into Mr. Cooke’s parish, to preach.
On the next Sabbath, Mr. Cooke refuted his ar
guments with his characteristic fervor' and power,
and “then gathering indignation as he proceeded,
he followed him. o.ver the province. His chase
went through town .after .town; there was, no.esf
cape from his; restless energy;: and, whatever
might be; said of the: clergy, the sympathy and
the reason of the people went with the brilliant
speaker whosezeal.coosumod him,like fire.” The
baffled apostle of-error returned in, weariness ; to
England. Cooke wasiarouseditoithe emergency;
and . in the; following years, the fight was trans-,
ferred to the floor of, Synod.. Tradition still tells
how, at. the first, the: hearts, of, the faithful trem
bled as the unequalled orator, Dr. Henry Mont
gomery, poured forth in the-cause of error that
brilliant eloquence, which (as Cooke said,)-“ like
the snow, beautified;'but AtcZwhatever it fell.op.”
But “ that young man from Killileagh” was
taking notes, and-offered to meet him if Father
—who “knew, the whole Bible by heart,”
would repeat .all-the texts .of the Bible that bore
on the controversy; while the was: getting ready.
On a tombstone in the adjacent church-iyard
those “ notes ” were got ready, and when Cooke
rose on the'floor of Synod, Montgomery knew
that he had met his master. The cold light of
rhetorical brilliancy was no match for. the intense
fire and fervor of -an enthusiastic orthodoxy.
The fight was renewed in the following years,
Cooke taking tbe lead—at Strabane in 1827, at
Cookestown in 1828, and at-Lurgan in 1829, when
it was resolved that every minister of Synod
must sign and accept the ‘Westminster Confes
sion, or forfeit his standing. At a special meet,
ing at Cookstown, in the same year, the Arians
tabled their Remonstrance and withdrew; Since
then their history has been one of decline, dis
sension and demoralization. Irish Ariahism,
crashed by the strong hand .of Presbyterian dis
* Tito name has escaped us.
cipline, has dwindled into unheard of feebleness.
The year previous Mr. Cooke had been called
to the May St. church in Belfast, where he con
tinued pastor for.forty years. His intense fervor
and; logical power as a preacher, his flashing eye,
his tall erect form, (.justly said to resemble that
of our. pw.ii Albert. Barnes,) his solemn, thrilling
prayers, drew thousands to his church, and made
it, a place .of, pilgrimage to those who had heard
pf hU name in, foreign lands. And while .life
lasted, liis power lasted. Jefferson Cpllege, Pa.,
mj.,1929 had the honor of conferring upon him
the. .degree of D.D., to which the University of
jDjiblin, added that of,L.L.D., as a reward for
his. services in fighting.the Scottish, opponents-of
State, Churches. As a politician, he was intensely
Tory,, and continued s.o to, the end, inaugurating
in 1834 .“.the Protestant. Peace ”,and proclaiming,
the banns of matrimony between the Episcopalian,
and Presbyterian Churches. In 1841 he chal
lenged, O’Connell to, a debate .on the; Repeal of.
the “ Dan ” wisely declined.: Yet he
Bided with,. the Free Church of Scotland at the
Disruption, and gave £1,0.00 froip his. own. purse
towards its support. He united „w\th Dz. Edgar
and: other.leading men in tbe .Secgder Synod, in
secnring.in. 1840 that union which has done so,
much to to strengthen the Irish Church, and in
those measures of rigid mural discipline which
so, strengthened her hold on tb,e
people. ,He cordially supported the plan of Irish
Natjonal Education, which the Irish Presbyterians,
secured from the. Gpv.ernment, in spite of the op
position of the Ro.mish and Anglican hierarchies,
and whioh, hgs done so much for . all .classes of
th,e , community. -FjOr the ..past,: tiyentyj years he.
was Professor in Belfast College.
< Df nothing was he.-more, proud, Ahau, of his.
connection . with the Scotch jrish of Ulster,, and
his descent one of the detenders of London
:derry T in, 1,691. And .no man was such full
length portrait of the Seotch-Irish character,
of its - intensity and fervor of will and purpose,
its ■ firm and ■ conscientious grasp 1 ion truth ■ arid’-
duty, and' (we mtist add) : its ! consequent liability
to mistake obstinacy for - firmness* and prejudice
jfi&.eonyiatibß.-' •. fie has left few equals. He! has
fought a good.fight; he has finished; his course. -
! ’His course in regardeto Psalmody was charac
teristic of- the man. In the. earlier days of his
Ariau fight, he made use of Evangelical hymns as
a most .efficient weapon against vArianism; the,
Irish adherents of which still sing Rouse’s Ver
sionwithoub'difficulty.'; Towards the close of: his
career he.beoame a bitter opponent of all unin
spired compositions,” cutting “ the Paraphrases”
out of his own Psalm-Rook and burning them, and
sewing them.to the covers of the Bible and PsAlm
Books in- his pulpit, so that no.temporary occu
pant of his place could open them and “profane
the sanctuary’’ by “offering strange fire.” Yet
tradition tells that in his earlier days the hymn
“ Coronation ” was a favorite of his, being read
in 'a broad Antrim accent which amused the peo
ple of less Scotch districts oft Breland—
“And croon Him Loar"of awl.”
SATED BY HOPE.
The past by itself, has enough in it to crush
anyone. Its failures, errors, disasters,’ sins,—
its evil conscience make a dreary retrospect. At
the best, we are constrained to' say, if there is
nothing better than there has been, in national,
social,personal life, and in the Church, then life
is hardly worth living and the world itself scarcely
dese/ves a prolonged existence. Christ indeed,
has died and is risen again ; but if the world’s
past, and if the known past experience of Chris
: tians in tithe were to be the only result of that
great event, it would'be a-stupendous failure! We
cannot feel that the degree of'progress and na
tional excellence or prosperity yet attained by
this people, fulfils the expectations, or justifies
the blood and toil of our fathers, or corresponds
to the significance of that wonderful' series of
providences, by. which it was first established
among men.' ’ Only a shallow selficomplacency
.can buoy us up in view of the present and the
past in themselves. The very life of our lives,
the very oxygen_of our mental atmosphere, is in
the idea that this is not a final, complete state of
being but wholly probationary and preparatory,
—that everything good is in the germ and in pro
cess of development; that we see good,As ten
dency and not as realized fact; that we are in
the thick of a struggle which has world-wide
proportions, and unfathomable mysteries in the
universe of and that the victory of the
good is a future event reached only through de
lay, a'nd seeming disaster and death. Retrospec
tion kills.' We are saved by hope. The earnest
expectation of the creature waiteth for the mani
festation of the sons of God. The whole creation
groaneth and travailetk in pain together until
now. - :
The true indeed, may-not look with
Genesee Evangelist, No. 1181.
( Home & Foreign Hiss. $2.00.
1 Addressl334 Chestnut Street.
jaundiced eyes on the past. It is far from
wholly evil. But the good in himself and in
the world is so rudimentary-land imperfect, that
it would chill'him to hisvery soul, if he did not
view it Os part-of a-still advancing movement,
upward—ever upward, and no never in vain, though
slow. "■ He is saved from abandoning- hit work in
disgust by hope. It has a futttro and a great
future; its future is its true, stage-of l 'existence;
as much beyond the feeble present, as ’ the glor
ious fruits off summer are beyond - the' darkly
sprouting seed of early spring. Through many
unfavorable changes, and seemingly backward
movements, the germ struggles onward to full
maturity-; almost its entire worth at any stage
of its being* lies incite unfulfilled-destiny. It is
saved by hope. ■ *
Thus all that is really good in the past is saved
and carried-over into the future by hope. We
dismiss* weariness, disgust and-despondency upon
the threshold of the New Year, and enter upon it
in renewed, enlarged hope. If we have but laid
the foundation of a good life in ygafg past, and
have seemed to make no progress sihce, we will
not renounce our’ plans*}and go' into spiritual
bankruptcyi Much-rather, the little good of Our
past shall be savedf by hope. If we have believed
and have still'felt burdened by UUvanquished sin,
we must remember that we are Bared by hope;
that faith is'lhe' substance- of 'thiiicfshaped for;
we grasp by faith a salvation that iS complete
only in the future. , Fbr what'a man seeth why
doth he -yet hope for ? Yet nbt'in sinful idleness
do we wait- and hope, but with 5 groaning and ear
nest laborj and-inexpressible desire. If we see
the world- -moving slowly and dubiously on the
path of true progress,- wo shall not despond, but
drinking at the fountain -of - enetgYand joyous
-ness, the assured hopePof-tHfe manifestation of
the'sons bfGod, we are saved from glopm, shamed
jdut of hesitancy and (quickened in 2ieal and devo
-tibn in our work. Toiler- in the - pulpit, in the
-Sabbath-school, in the "family, by the way side,
.among the heathen, through-the press,—weary,
-disheartened, broken in- spirit; -by 'the seeming
[smallness’ dr’discouraging quality Of‘the fruits of
your laboraV'remeiubet .that no-present results
-whatever Can be the final? test of their value.
Their feebleness and insignificance may belong to
their necessary preparatory condition. They
may-be the handful of corn, the fruit whereof
shall shake like Hebanon Be not weary in well
doing; for. in due season we shall reap if we faint
, not. '
Bat be content in beginning the New Year
with no hope short of the Christian’s. Other
hopes may buoy you over shoals and bars in this
life, and, in a limited way, may have a saving ef
fect. 1 But: hope l in the divine promise and pur
pose saves us forever, and qualifies us to engage
in work for immortal- and spiritual ends, as cer
tain as they are glorious. While worldly hope
hears its knell in the question, What shall it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul ? What shall it pirofit a man though
all the rosy cloud-castles of his worldly hopes shall
this year be fulfilled, if this year, too, he lose his
own soul ?
“ If the Sunday had not been observed as a day
of rest,’’ said Lord Macaulay, “ but the axe, the
spade, the'anvil and the loom had been at work
every day during the last three centuries, I have
not the smallest doubt that we would have been
at this moment a poorer people and a less civilized
people than we are.” Mr. Bagnall, an extensive
iron worker in England, discontinued the use of
his blast furnaces on Sunday in 1841. Seven
years after he wrote, “ We have made a larger
quantity of iron than ever, and gone on, in. all.
our six iron works, much more free from acci
dents and interruption than during any proceed
ing seven years of our lives.” We last week
published a report of the working of a Sabbath-
Keepiny Cheese Factory in Ohio, which deserves
a place among the standard proofs of the economi
cal bearings of the Sabbath. In this case, a
business generally believed to admit of no inter
ruption from one end of the week to the other,
was carried on in entire regard of the sanctity of
the Sabbath day; and the result was, as good, if
not ,a better article for the market in equal
quantity, and certain incidental advantages of a
business character, well calculated to open the
eyes of the community on the whole subject.
We earnestly hope the good deacon and his
patrons will be encouraged to give permanence to
their experiment.
Henry Ward Beecher’s last “ kink” is a
Sunday lecture on hygiene. A series is being
delivered by Dr. Parker, an eminent Brooklyn
physician, in the Mission chapel recently erected
by Plymouth church, on Sabbath evening. This
is understood to be at the personal Bequest of
Mr: Beecher.