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New Series, Vol. VI, NJoan
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Strictly in Advance s2.6o,'Otherwise $3. 1
Postage 20cts, to be paid where delivered.
gmaitautotrghtiait.
THURSDAY, ',llj.tY 15, 1869
—The bad boys of,llumboldt,,Ks, have greatly
improved since Rev. Col. James 'Lewis, one of
the "Kansas Ten " from Union Seminary, started
a Sabbath school among them.
—lncluding Mr. Schieffelin's,gift of $8,200, the.
N. S. Ministerial Relief' Fund's receipts. of
1868-9, were about double those of the previous
year."
—The Presbyterian 0., S. of this city in, an
article last week argues that, the legal life of the
United Church "must be.breathed" into it from
the Old School as the only incorporated Church,
—ln the Religiouritelligence of the week,
readers will note the establishment of a new
Presbyterian Church in Lowell, Mass, 'under
encouraging circumstances. Rev. J. B. Dunn
who has by the blessing of God wrought a great
work for decaying Presbyterianism imßoston,
has a hand in this movement.
, Mr. Dann 'went
from our branch to the other last year; and he
seems remarkably fitted for his position. Will,
not the united Church have a work to do: in
New England ? As no longer merely Old School,
may she not be welcomed by many who 'ha . 7
hitherto seen no escape from the laxity of Con
gregationalism save in the formalism of Episco
pacy 7 Our Congregational. brethren in New
England, doubtless,' are 'expecting us to• pay
them, for the aid they have recently been volun
teering us, upon what has hitherto been regarded
as Presbyterian ground.
—The seventh half-yearly report of Freed
men's schools, issued by the Superintendent, J.
W. Alvord, shows that during
,the ordinary
vacation period of last, year 1,323 schools (day,
night, and Sunday-schools) were open and
69,987 pupils attended. The report justly ob
serves that "_this voluntary application, to study
during a holiday season can hardly be paralleled
in any other educational record." On the Ist
of January, 1869, there were 2,588 schools in
operation through the states, with 142,470
pupils. Al small increase over the previous year.
The reign of terror which prevailed up to the
Presidential Election last fall, seriously inter
fered with the prosperity of the schools.
—The comparative receipts of the 0. S.
Boards and of our own Committees irk the month ,
of May, so far as reported, show, for the N. S.'
Committee of Home Missions $5,757.01,0. S.
Board $3,856.52; N. S. Committee for Freed
men $2041 50; 0. S. Committee $1,119.38 . .
N. S. Committee of Education about $l,OOO,
G. S. Board of do. 84,017.43. The remaining
figures are of the 0. S. branch. The corres
ponding departments in our branch, have pub.
lished no reports. Board of Foreign Missions,
$12,483.83; Board of Public:4cm, (colportage
and distribution fund,) $5,031.17 ; Board of
Church Extension, $769.42; Fund for Disabled
Ministers, $3,285.28. '
—Certainly if Father Hecker and a few en
thusiastic Romani* in England and America,
with a few fainthearted Protestants in both
countries, regard the affairs of the Papacy as in'
a flourishing condition, there is one Papist of
considerable authority and wide information, who
takes a very different view of the situation. We
mean no other person than " His Holiness"
himself. There is no class of extant literature
which more nearly resembles the Lamentations
of Jeremiah, than the various utterances of Pope
Pius IX. on the state of what he calls the
Church. On the twenty-third anniversary of
his pontificate, which recently occurred, the
Pope, in reply to an address from the College of
Cardinals, expressed thankfulness to God who
had sustained him " in the midst of such nume
rous and cruel trials." " God" he says, "leaves the
Church exposed to renewed tempests." The
faithful are obliged to "wait patiently for good
principles to resume their salutary empire."
" We can and ought to desire" he continues,
" that the proud who persecute the . Church may
be humbled and confounded." He calls for
" actions of grace" CO God, for, having " pre
served peace in this marvelously privileged mor-,,
sel of land,"—th e remnant of the states of the
Church; and finally he breaks out into a strain
of unmitigated lamentation:
Ah, how heavy are the evils which oppress
this Church. What ruins, what tears everp,,
where I Perhaps at this moment, while I am
speaking, a kingdom is deprived of its laSt'
bishop; he also thrown into prison or ca rried
into exile. (At this allusion to'the persecutions
in Poland, the Pope was painfully agitated.)
Certainly, God might permit that we ourselves
should have to encounter the paw fate as those
bishops.
Poor Pope ! lle,sees not a grain of comfort
or encouragement in the progress of ritualism,
the conversion , of the rich Marquis of Bute, the,
possession of the purse
. strings of New York
State, or even the pre:Setice•of a hundred young
men of 4i i friCan descent in the Oollege of ROme,
whO are to convert the Freedmen 'of theiSonth
1
to ‘the - pure faith. We are incline& to submit
our judgment, in this case,: to that,cif the Pontiff.
While .these more recent ,advantages are no
trill4s in themselves, yet' compared with' the'
enormous and •Constantly; augmenting loisses of
power and prestiguwhich the Papacy is suffer
ing in the ancient. empires and the ,political
systems of Europe, they are as a drop in the
buCket. ' •
CITY EVANGELIZATION.
The increasing profanation of 'the Sabbath in
our cities; the utter coriuption,of the politics of.
all parties; the carnival' of crime , which 'some'
times' preVails in themas id mir diib last ,win
'ter ; the throng of foreigners of the lowest spin
'itual type, who: set, at defiance ; all attempts at,
legislative restraint, and whose places'of low en
tertainment undermine us as with'. catacombs of
guilt; the fewnesS of great, - .Eloyerftil churche's,
'whose well.direCtecrwealth and cOusrrat9d ac ;
tivity, like mighty heart-throbs,send AgArivnt l of.
life and salvatidn far around -through the , seeth
nMss; the thinly eMptY fweivs; the' pticii: 'half
starved
starved`pastors struggling among the 'masses like
soldiers going to fight on empty' haversacks; Op
wholesale conformity to the,world in amusements, :
fashions, and Covetous aims •of vast numbertoof
Gods people in'ihe cities, Seem to indibate that
our chnrclieil instead of gaining n.Pon'our i homel
heatbeniSm, a'redrifting.altogether bohind it.
It may be true—we are inclined ' to think .it
14—that in this city, the Presbyterian Church< of
•
the . two leading branches Has `about kept pace
siriCe'thi di;iii6n, with the growth of the native
opulati z on.. T, Tey o X4 , of ,AT9w ;$.064.1.
,Church, for:tne last three or fouryears, has been
.exceptionally good. During that time it' has
erected, or has got fairly ataited, ahout one dozen'
church edifices in this city, and it is still•hard at
work in the same blessCd business. its
churches
of
churches are thronged 'and vigorous. Vo, too,
are some of those in the other branch, although
they have dene'comp,aratively little' in tiie work
of city church , erection.' The same:may be said
of the smaller branches of the ~ Presbyterian
Church... Altogether they have perhaps met the
wants of their own population; and proportionably.
they hold their own with that class of people.
But they have not only not gained upon this
class, they have po.,itively lost in comparison with
the growth of the whole mass. They have made no
impression whatever, upon the increase 'resulting
from Celtic-and German immigration. It is all
beyond them. T,hese people have no direct re
ligious sympathies or relations with our churches.
.Not.that they are utterly nez. lected by Christian
people. The Lutherans and the 'German Re
formed are doing 'a great work among , the Ger
mans.' Methodists and Baptists are laboring on
the same field. But 'the whole field is untouched,
as yet, by Presbyterians. Aud it is one of deep
necessity, as we all know.'
Our duty is, therefOre, plain. We must en
large our work among'the native, population, and
we must begin our work. among the foreigners:
We must, fill up the vacant seats in our .new
churches. Ministers must seek a new , baptisni of
love and faith, and a new inspiration from their
themes; perhaps they must throw , away manu
scripts; at all events, they must not lose their
hearers' attention, and 'their hearers, too, by
drowsy preaching. Church'members must gen
erously sustain and encourage' their ministers by
fair living salaries. They themselves must live
and work for Jesus with a new consecration 'in
their families; their business, their social circles,
and in their, churches. They must combine
church with ohurch,foi• broad, effective, contin
uous, aid wise evangelistic effurt in establishing
Sunday Schools, and in planting churches, and
in goitig' and giving theniselves to the new
churches, and , getting' them•uP, at once, as vig
orous centres of saving'influence, instead of fee
ble, tottering affairs, with which nobody wishes to
be connected. !
The united Presbyterian Church should not
live sit months without establishing one such a
vigorotis church among. the Germans of our city.
That part of our population has just bought the
large property at the corner , of Seventh and Vine
Ste., for the erection of a German Theatre, and
Will soon proceed to demolish the buildings at,
•jcireseq ocenpying the site,
~Slmultaneously with
the rising of the walls of the theatre, the walls o 1
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1869.
a Presbyterian Church should rise, for thewame
population. It is a work which should 'not wait
for reunion, but which should be begun uoi.
And we may hope that the, whole work of City
`Evangelization amonc , Presbyterians will be
among the'''very'first'to re - Ceive a powerful" itaPe
tits from the Reunion; tinit as the Reunion will
'be consummatedin Philadelphia, the neglected
. „
masses,of,cnir city will be the first to f4l
blessed effects.
We deeply regretted the failure of our As
-s:%
embly New,York to pass • the clause.,,iu,,Dr.
Heacock's, „oTand, ; report, upon the unchristian
and inhuman treatment of the Chinese in Cali
.
fornia, and we have ,coßtinned to regret :it ever
;since. The various pleas put in against the em-
Thatio expression of our indignation at, such
shameful wrong and outrage were in our view
'quite
, psirrelevant as_ tynt . eas formerly urged
by, , our Southern bretbren against any action by
.the General AssemblY on the wrongs of Ameri
can ,slavery. It was condemned by the Capfor
'nia brethren on ; the floor, as the needless inter
ference of men incompetent I
to, judgeef
facts of Ur case. The good people of i.Cnlifor
nis, who were on ihe ..round, would take the
Matter in hand, and even if vi.ilance Conimit
'tees were needed tbey would be fortheoming to
right the wrong. It would do harm; our AS
sembly would be laughed at; and soon. The re:'
:sult was a quiet conference between the Com
mittee 'and the Cali ormae r ren andthe re
b tt
turn of Dr. HeaCook's report to the platform,
innocent of every allnsion to that .which, a
fey hours before,,hkd provoked the anther's no-'
ble and.indignant eloquence. His Complaint
Died unheard
With a' most - voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword!
• ~
McanWhile as a comment upon our silence, the
•outrages, continue. And we rejoice to "see That
the - ,)ress of California is under moo
pressive/intlnenqes,janddoes not hesitate toispeak
of them as tl;cy.cieserve. • !Hare is, an • extract,
from a late number of, the Poci:c; the, prOcle
bears : the vigorous ,Anglo-Saxon title: Smartt ,
DRELISM. It says :
" Scarcely a day passes in which some act of
scoundrelism perpetrated'upon this inoffensive
class of people is not recorded in 'onr journals.'
And the brutality of these assaults is almbst beyond
belief. If our boys had been echicated under the:
influence of, gladiatorial shows, and Spanisl;,_
bull fights, they could not be more heartless and
cruel. 'Thefare not ,Stitisfied with simply annpy-,
,ing and teasing -these'll'eltileis strangers, but they
must bruise thie- skiti; they must fetch blood";
they must see.,their.vietim gasp in, the• agonies of
extreme pain before they,willzense their sport.,
It is an offense of our Christian,ciyilisation which
'cries to heaven. Is there not nobility and gen:
Crosity enough among our'people, to say nothing'
,bf , jUsticean'd Christian honor; to .put a stop to.
'these outrages,?, Can we•wonder that'the matter
of these wrongs was 4 thought worthy to come be
fore- the late Assembly ,of , the Presbyterian
Church' in , New York'? Not only Pre'sbyterians,
'bUt all Christians, and all who claim thepriiii
lege of citizenship among us, should see that our
community and our boasted ,civilization is dis,
°raced no more by,these dendish assaults with-
out their being visited with a just retribution."
Many of ,us have felt the, deepest alarm at the
possible effects of a vast immigration of these
heathen people upon the stability of our Chris.'
tian institutions; but a Christianity which can
wink at such violations of the plainest duties
between man and man, might disappear from the
earth, and man be but little the worse for it.
If 'we are determined to shut the Chinese out
of our country; let us frankly say so, and by
peaceable and regular methods let us enforce our
purpose. Of course, then, Americans must
expeet to be 'shut out of China.: But if our
Wistern gates are to be kept open, and these
people are to come at their own free will, then
all the living moral . sentiment o 1 the community,
•
which , has just compelled justice to be done at
great cost to the negro, must rise, and through
the press, 'the pulpit 'and 'the highest courts of
our churches, must require these outra.es to
cease and insist upon equal justice to the Chi
nese.
These people are about to spread throuol sour
whole 'country. Twenty thOusand of them will
soon be at work on the plantations of Tennessee.
Twenty-five 'thousand more are epected in. Mis
sissippi. We shall have to adjust our relations
to them "in the East, as well as in the West.
May God save , us, as:it nation, from repeating the
wrong for* whiCh we have just atoned by four
years of war, and - for which we are still -bearing
the most burdensome national debt 'in the world.
—We have - received from C. Scribner & , Co.,
Headley's Adirondack, New Edition; President
Woolsey's Book on Divpree; Pepper's Cyclopedic
Science Illustra.ted (Engliah print;) Southey's
Book of the Church (En.dish print.)
TREATMENT OF THE CHINESE.
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY .CORROBORATING
' THE OLD TESTAMENT.
There are.•certain iniaginative people in the
world calling themselves men of science, who
upon a - there hint; will proceed forthwith to turn
•
.you offf a finished cosmos; who after scratching
a few rods into the earth's cruse,' will assure you
of the iature bf the whole eight"thousand miles
of the iireeribr, and will lay yon Off the successive
geological periods of the earth's . history for
countless millions - of years. 'Mr. Wallace; the
late Darwinian' naturalist' and traveler, in his
deeply inierestinc46'bk : . The Malay Archipelago,
undertakers toil:der. frcirti the distributiOn of
lifes'on the Island.s of 'that strange region,
the most' extensive' chingei in the relative posi
tion of laird arid 'water; to'the - Southleast of , Asia,
since the creation of these animals. From cer
tainMarked' peculiarities of the-, animal 4ife of
Celebes,,he .undertakes to help, wit a-a theory
already .extant, ¶of. the, probable existence of a
continent stretching from Madagascar acrossthe
Indian, Ocean arid including. Ceylon and-Celebes
as ; outlying,, portions of the , great territory.
F,'fiorn the maXity and uncertain, evidence of the
lake r ,dwelkrs ,:of, Switzerland , and the , stone
'structures in the lakes•Of Irelnnd,tand . the like,
'others have spunli,out;,..elabOrate ;theories ; of a
'prehistoric,man of whom -Moses ..knew nothing.
,We do uot intend, to, enter upon any, argument
With these, theorists, nor ,by any means to dis
parage, truly scientific), labors in any: sphere., We
merely point3o, the unquestioned fact that many
of these ' scientific" dogmas are.mere 'conjectures,
"some of , them,voy ; wild indad; many others are
shrewd !guesses; "pally df.; them are, purely ex
perimpntal. and{ tentative, such as the ;inquirer
'must expect to,set ; aside by the dozen ,on •the'way
'to the
,truth, . Accepted conclusions of • science
they. are, not; ,and,those who do receite them , as
although at the sacrifice of the truth of the
Rible,provei !how readily,: rashly, and unscien-.
tifi„c,ally menfall- into%beliefs on scientifie'rnatters,
while in !religion they, cherish. the mosloeitreme
and preposterous scepticism.. - • ; .
' But it is matter ) •of ,itejoicing ',that. the, better,
E lo # sPientifie oui , iday, mot in the
way of brilliant and , nnsupportea ',conjecture, but
by sober investigation into existing memorials. of
l'the
.race, IS. reaching results most ,clearly, cor
*robpratiteof the Scripture:: record. We refer to
late, announcements ; such as that•of Mr. Deutsch
the 4:Bscoverp of Phenician masons' marks
upon the great foundation stones of. Solomon's
iemple, and those of Oppert, Smith and Rawlin,
"son'y:regard to the Cuileiforii, inscriptions of
'Nineveh. Tiyo years ago, Oppert's interpretation
, •, •
of inscriptions discovered, by Rawlinson among •
the' ruins of Babilon, pointed out Nebuchad
neizar As the authOr, and sliowed that the whole
Story of the tower of Babel, and the confusion of
'tongues, was accepted as- the tradition of the
country whicii he governed. The royal author,
in this docuinent,"claimS to have continued and
comPleted the abandoned 'tower, which, he says,
had laid ruins since the earthquake, and the
thnnder of. the Almighty had overwhelmed it.
Even the chronolocrical indications of the
writing, whiCh - make forty-two generations from
the Dispersion teNebuchadnezzar, agree admira
bly with the chionology of the Scriptures, which
,gives about sixteen tundred years for the same
period. "This result," says Prof .gackett, "is
not unimportant, iq view of modern . obiections,
ivhiCh charge , the chronologY of Genesis with
errors of centuries."
At the annual meeting.of the (British) Royal
Asiatic Society, held Ilttay`3lst, Sir Henry Raw
linson, the presiding' officer, alluded to the
further progress made in decipherina these As
syrian inscriptions. He declared himself to be
perSuaded that there 'is a near , connection be
tween the BabYlonian documents now in Eng
, ,
land, and the oldest biblical notices. He is
sanguine in expectations that we shall soon be
able'to draw froln, oriaiiial documents the whole
history related in the book of Genesis from
Abraham's day, and, moreover, that the same
fac6 and the same deseriptiOas will be folind in
the Babylonian Hebrew documents and in the
Hell'revi Bible. Sir Henri Rawlinson preMised
to befbre the society, at no distant date, a
paper on'the Gardell'of Eden; in which he hopes
to show that the Garden of Eden was the natural
name, of Babylon; the rivers'bore the very same
names, and the Babylonian documents' give an
exact geographical account of he Garden of
Eden, Sir Henry Rawlinson laid stress, how
ever, upon the reservation that he was speaking
merely of the geography, and not of the facts
eonneeted with it. He an'noun'ced that the
Deluge and the building of the Tower of, Babel
would be most fully illustrated by the Babylonian
'documents.
, ,
—NO less than thirty-three thousand copies
of Dr. March's last .booli----NronT SCENES IN
THE BlEJA— T ,have been: sold by subscription.
Genesee Evangelist, No. 1208.
5 Home & Foreign Miss. $2.00.
t Address:-1334 Chestnut Street
THE PASTORAL LETTER.
We suppose the writers of such old-fashioned
documents as Pastoral Letters, have a pretty clear
consciousness of the limited practical value of
their work. In this age, mere authority secures
little attention, to persons, documents, books or,
newspapers. We doubt, 'whether the Pastoral
Letter, which we published in our last issue, al
though signed, by twenty-two leading names of
ministers and laymen in both branches of the
church, will •be an exception to the usual treat
ment of ecclesiastical manifestoes Not one of
the newspapers publishing it, deemed it worth
editorial notice. And those who read it, will,
we think, be compelled, to say, notwithstanding
the almost unparalleled significance of the occa
sion which called it forth, that it in no way ex
ceeds in ability the average of such. documents.
We do not intend- to complain of it on this ac
count, for the whole subject,,,pr which it treats
has: been so largely: discussed through the, press
and in the higher and lower church courts, that
there would seem,to be little left unsaid. And
% yet it was not an unnatural expectation which we
ihad cheriShed, that if no new things could be
said, at. least,,the best..thoughts of the church
should -be reproduced.in a ; document which for
grandeur of style, ,force, pf argument and evan
gelical inspiration might compel the attention of
all readers, and create fresh enthusiasm for its
object all t over the : Presbyterian church, and
'throughout the Christian-world. Obviously, the
Pastoral Letter , will do. nothing of the sort, but
'will quietly, take a ,respectable place in the dusty
archives of, the church.
As, an argument fettle adoption of the Basis,
we are constrained to describe it as one-sided and
insufficient.. : The whole effort seems to be to
represent; the measure as exactly answering the
.deloands of tbe,Mass,of the Old School Presby
teriesiof last winter and spring. " The Basis"
says,the Pastdral Letter, "is simply the doctrin
al and ecclesiastical, Basis of our Standards. .
Each Body, equally, with the .other, recognizes
and abides, by this plagerna, as the natural and
constitutional ground for those claiming to be
Presbyterians.; and as the. true, safe, consistent
and unchallengeable ground for these, two bodies
coming again to• be one." Much pore follows
in the saroe,strain.
Of the Preamble to the Basis, which is the
root and life of the Basis itself, in which " each
Body recognizes" the other's orthodoxy, not a
word is said; while, the highly important Con
current -Declarations are dismissed in half a
dozen lines, as follows :," Several items, not in
the Basis, are appendessl, as Concurrent Decla
rations of the General. Assemblies of 1869.'
They express certain mutual understandings to
be carried out in good faith, though not of the
nature of .a contract.'"
A broad and . magnanimous spirit, we should
think, might have dictated a different strain of
argument. Perhaps it was felt that the difficul
ties, if any there• were, to the success of the
plan, were entirely on the side, to which these
considerations are addressed, our own people
being already too well satisfied to need argument
or persuasion. The matter is of but little con
sequence, as it can hardly be doubtful that a
two-thirds vote of the Presbyteries in both bran
ches would have been obtained, even if the Pas : .
toral Letter had never been. written.
One valuable and stimulating thought we find
toward , the close of the Letter, in the view of
the greatmork opening before the united Church.
It brings the great and perplexing question of
Chinese immigration under a light of Providen
tial purpose, well calculated both to comfort God's
people ,and to provoke them to new zeal in His
service. •
" Meanwhile the ends of the earth are mar
vellously brought together, as if in eager waiting
to, see the salvation of our God. And as if to
rebuke the slowness of our Foreign lifissionau
work, the idolatrous populations of Asia are
thronging upon our Pacific coast."
• We thank the Joint Committees for this sug
gestion, which savours of a true evangelical in
,sight. 0l if our Union shall but equip us the
better to meet this single extraordinary, may we
not say portentous phenomenon, in which for
eign heathenism threatens to tonal and reinforce
the home heathenism with which' we have thus
far struggled so fruitlessly, it will of itself be.
enough to prove its expediency And to make it
one of the greatest blessings to America.
—Our correspodent, On then Wing, argues for
the Lord's Day as: especially demanded by the
highly organized forms' of society, with truth
and ability,; but when 'he presses the argument
from the silence of. Scripture, that there was no
Sabbath in the 'patriarchal times, as not de
man,ded by the existing forms of society, the
Christian jury will render a verdict of "not
proven.":.