New Series, Vol. Vl_
John AWeir
Strictly in Advance $2.50, Otherwise wis.
Postage 20cts, to be paid where delivered. f
AFTER RE-UNION, WRIT?
In all probability record will be formally made
and official notice given next November of the
Union of two branches of the Presbyterian church.
The veriest doubter must have tenacious grasp
of his doubt, to hold it amidst such signs as we
have to-day. Already the streams touch each
other and are mingling. In sixty. days . their
separate identity will be lost. What then ? The
question for the entire Church is this. Every
memmber of our communion is bound to give it
thoughtful and prayerful heed. It is not a ques
tion to be left to the clergy. Nor to the Fathers.
Nor to Boards and Committees. The entire
living membership of the body of Christ, consti
tuting the churches that are to share in the ap
proaching nuptials, must answer this question,
and with some regard to the obligations assumed,
the responsibilities imposed, and privileges vouch
safed, if answer is to be given to the glory of
God. Reunion accomplished, What then?
It has been longed for and prayed for by good
men. The heralding of its nearer and nearer
approach has been received by thousands as .ti
dings of great joy. The trumpetings of it have
been big with prophecy and promise. It has
been claimed to be the ushering in of a new era.
Shall it be seen that we have been imitating the
example of some authors, who thunder only in
the index ? Is our apparent zeal for the glory
of God to have "the lame and impotent conclu
sion" of a great zeal for the glory of denomina
tionalism 7, Or is there to issue out of re-union
that which shall be a justification of our joy at
its coming, and a fulfillment of the best prophe
cy on record of its beneficent results?
There is no' power in great ecclesiastical size.
Bigness needs other qualities to make itself felt.
Nor shall we get any such momentum from the
mere junction of our forces as will carry us very
far forward in the widening grooves of evangelis
tic effort. Union alone will endow us with no
projective force. Indeed, we shall lose somewhat
by Union. We shall lose the spur and stimulus
that came from a competing organization, mar
shalled under the same banners and holding the
same symbols. Doubtless something for Christ,
by each branch of the Church, has been done,
and something has been given, that would not
have been done and would not have been gii6n,
had it not been for the 'spirit of emulation, mov
ing us to seek to surpass each other in Christian
activity and benevolence. Doubtless we have
stirred each other up to love and good works.
Whatever may be said of the quality of the in
spiration that has thus given impetus to our
evanuelical activity, it has had its place and made
itself felt. And we are to lose it. it will drop
out of the list of incentives to toil when we are
one again.
On the other hand, there will doubtless be a
gain. A gain in the economic use of funds—in
the economic employment of agency—in the eco
nomic distribution of our evangelistic force. But
if this be all, it will be a most meagre thing and
utterly beneath our privilege and our obligation.
To be content with making just such record of
increase and efficiency, of toil and triumph, uni
ted, as we made apart, will not answer. Some
thing better, and higher, and grander, is demand
ed of us. The possibility is the call of God. It
is ours to make the possible, actual. There never
was a more glorious possibility. Church of
Christ never had clearer divine call. We shall
court the smiting of God to spiritual leanness and
barrenness, if we do not heed it. We shall
merit severe rebuke. We shall be chargeable
with using great swelling words of promise, filled
only with wind and vanity. The united Church
must be what the two Branches of the Church
never were, in life and labor and liberality. The
old standards of Christian giving must be lifted
away from their present altitude, and set furlongs
higher in the scale of obligation. The old grooves
of Christian effort must give way to others, in
and through which there may be room for the
play and sweep of greatly vitalized and enlarged
activities. While our life—our spiritual life,
with God and in God, must be more vivid and
intensely real. It must be closer and deeper, in
creasing the clearness of our conception, and the
firmness, of our grasp, and the fervor of our love,
of things spiritual.
A mere blast of trumpets sounding a call to
something great in the way of beneficence as a
thank-offering, will only lead to a fitful and spas
modic effort. And our last state will be worse
than the first. First of all, therefore, paramount
to every-other thing we have to do, vital in order
to such fruit of Union as may be, and ought to
be, brought forth to the glory of God—first of
all, every where, throughout our entire borders,
by the least and the , greatest, by every, individual
member of our communion,. there should be re
newed commitment and consecration_ to Christ.
As a basis for anything like permanence in Roar-
ity and eontinuance . .in liberality, this is essential.
The whole Church must needs get closer to God:
The currents of our spiritual life must go deeper
than they do. If our Union is to make its im
press on the world, compelling men to believe
that God is in it, answering tc) this extent at
least his Son's intercessory prayers,.it must be a
union signalized, most of all, alike as a product
and aspromotive of spirituality and Christ-like
ness. Let this be the burden of our prayer and
the substance of our talk in all the gatherings
held to consider the great measUre.. Let , the
current of desire bear resistlessly in this diree
• tion in, all our approaching Presbyterial meetings.
Let the • potent religious press sound the pall to
this higher spiritual life. Let pastors and peo
ple be urged to eldset themselves with God, so
that we nOt'only be kept from the pride of
Babel or Babylon builders, but brought into such
close alliance with the Master and into 'such close
sympathy with his out-reaching
.and world-em
bracing spirit as our Church has never known.
And let us have a day for this—a 'day of special,
consecration by appointment 'of the Assemblies
about to meet in Pittsburgh, when our four
thousand pulpits shall seek simultaneously to in
terpret God's voice in this matter, preaching to
our four thousand congregations on the one great
theme, pressing home the responbibilities impos
ed upon them, and summoning them with whole
hearted and unreserved surrender to take a new
departure, and in the name of the Lord of hosts
to "go through the gates " and possess the land
for Christ. And then, if it be thought hest, let
that day be a gift day as 'well : when we shall
give of our substance as well as give`our hearts :
when the generous largeness of our contributions
to the treasury, of, the. Church shall prove the
affluence of our lova for Christ : when some good
round millions shall testify to' our enlarged con
ception of the importance of the great evangelism,
and our deepened interest in its prosecution.
I CONSCIENTIOUS POLITICIAN.
Those who have faith that the American peo
pie are yet sound at the core and mean to do jus
tice in - spite of the corrnpting arts of politicians,
find elitering.confirmation of their views tothe
late letter of Generalßosecrans to the Democratic
leaders of Ohio. These leMiers have fallen into
the not uncommon error of base men ; that of
overestimating the strength of the base passions
of their fellow-men, and of taking altogether too
little account of the power of conscience in a sub
stantially Christian people. Downright villains
deny the existence of virtue in others. Corrupt
politicians believe the apeople also to be corrupt.
And they consider it a shrewd artifice, a wise po
litical move, to pander to this public corruption,
by the more or less open advocacy of some course
which would be highly convenient, it' it wet e not
wrong. General Rosecrans'Jetter is' the revolt
of the sound American heart against such dis
graceful propbsals. A member of the Demo=
cratic party, and hiving been nominated as the
candidate of that party for Governor of the State
of Ohio, he frankly and unsparingly proclaims
the antagonism of their platform to the princi
ples of justice and right. lie insists upon the
principle of political equality of the different
races as one to be accepted all around, and as the
only genuine Democratic principle; and he in
sists upon fidelity to the national obligations in
the fullest sense, and upon a return to specie
payments, that the whole debt may be paid, in
coin or its equivalent. Stich brave and whole
some words were needed in the din of a political
strife, which has threatened to involve and endat;t
ger the plainest principles of morality. They are
Ineeded to bring Democrats antißepublicans to
their senses. They are a voice from the inner
depths of the public conscience. In reading
them, politicians will see that there is a limit to
their bids for the rascal-sympathies of our na
tune; and that they cannot carry a governing
mass of their fellOw men in the maintenance of a
creed, which has _wholesale robbery, oppression
and retrogression for its leading articles.
Meanwhile Democrats like General Roseerans
—and may his tribe increase—and honest men of
all parties behold, with inexpressible:satisfaction,
the steady and rapid course of the government in,
lessening the public debt, its policy of retrench
ment and its demand for competence.and fidelity
among all its subordinate officers. This illus
trious example in behalf of the eighth command
ment must, have a highly re-assuring effect, and
must be promotive of fair , dealing between man
and man ever'ywhere. A purer air will breathe
through all the avenues of commerce. The pub
lic conscience will -be reinforced. But if the
men . against whom Gen. Rosecrans . writes, get
into' power, it' carry us no short stride to
wards. anarchy and barbarism. -
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1869.
INTEREST . AND STUDY.
Our U. P. brethren, who edit The-Evang e ll_
cat Repository, have .a review of ,Prof. . Hodge's
" Commentary im.tlie , Westminster Confession."
They say : r '
The 'author, in his preface, says, "At the
present time, two great denominations, having
discarded,
.all defining clauses, seem likely to,
unite on Vie basis . or thesq 'standards pure and
simple" We hail this with pleasure and grate
fully anticipate a largely increased interest [in]
and study'of these standards on every'sidei It
will certainly rejoice us should we find,that the
epectations of the respected' author, are not
groundless ; but we.,utterly fail to perceive that
these anticipations rest ill:ion any solid 'ground.
'We venture to affirm-that there is not a New
School man who looks -upon the phrase ' pure
and simple,' of which so much seems to be made,
as amounting to anything more than an
,approval
of the Confession as containing a systeria of doc
trines taught in the Scriptures; and has there
been, for the last thirty [two] years a single
Presbytery in the New School Presbyterian
Church that did not demand, such a declaration
of approval on the pail of all those whom it or
dained to the office- of the ministry and the -el
dership ? If these anticipations of the author
are well 'founded, they must rest upon some other
ground than the Agreement, on their part, to
receive the Confession as pure and simple."'
1. The above is rather severe upon our 0. S.
brethren. No 0. S. Presbytery has ever deman
ded acknowledgment of the standards more ex
plicit than the N. S. one here condemned as too
lax. The constitutional question in regard, to
the standards is the same in the two Churches,
and is couched in these very terms. This ques
tion, therefore, according to The Repository gives
us no security that the standards command any
great degree of " interest and study " in the
ministry and eldership of the O. S. body. How
ungenerous to strike 0. S. brethren in . Israel
over the heads of N. S. Samaritans-in this•style. ; !
2'. The Repository's comment shows how con
sonant to the practice and constitution of the
Presbyterian Church of America, is the tolera-
tion and forbearance of the New:School in mat
ters of doctrine. Here is an impartial and unbi
assed critical, opinion. 'This U. P. editor singles
out= as distinctively New School. the doctrinal
formulasof the undivided Church, and of
_both
branibei; 'since the division—as .it will be of
the United Church. We -rejoice at this new
light that has come to these brethren, as it will
obviate the necessity for any farther solemn
warnings to our 0. S. brethren from that quar-
ter. Since the 0. S. Church has nothing to lose
doctrinallY by Re-union, and since her own form
ulas provide for all the liberty asked by N. S•
Presbyterians, the movement will effect no doc
trinal disaster.
3. HOW do our brethren of The Repository
propose to excite that degree of "study and in
terest" hich Presbyterians ought to evince ? Is
it by adopting the U. P. method ? Is it by set
ting up a modern Testimony along side the old
Confession, around which the doctrinal life and
interest of the Church shall cluster ? Is it by
stereotyping the shibboleths and, narrcw tradi
tions of a small sect, and binding upon men's
shoulders burdens which they are unable to bear,
until they cry out against all Creeds and Confes
sions as an unchristian innovation on the
Church's freedom? These methods have been
exemplified in our minor Presbyterian bodies,
and we cannot forget that The Repository sus
tained its own denomination in condemning and
driving from its ministry a worthy servant of
Christ,—Rev. W. bl'eune—because he held
(against the U. P. Testimony,) the doctrine of
the Westminster Confession on the subject of
Christian Communion. This fact is worth re
membering, when the organs of that branch (or
twig) bewail Presbyterian neglect of the West
minster Standards.
A UN TIIROUGH . NEW ENGLAND.--11.
At Keene, N. H., the Congregational Associa
tion of the State was in session. It is composed
of clerical and lay delegates from the local con.
ferences, and numbers about fifty members. A
new constitution was adopted during, the sessions,
providing for a larger ratio of, representation,,as
well as for a more thorough and satisfactory col
lection of" statistics, and for measures adapted t o
increase the interest of the meetings.
The, children of the churches of Keene were
assembled when we arrived, and some hours. of
the crowded . session were cheerfully given to ex
ercises for their profit and entertainment.
The pastor of the First church in Keene, Rev.
Win. Karr, is in morainal connection with the
New School body, - having but a few years ago
been pastor in one of the Brooklyn churches.
He is a workman of whom his former associates
need not be ashamed, and he seemed to be com
pletely at home in his' ew ecclesiastical surround-
lugs. .His impromptu part of - the Sunday-school
exercises was, in our judgment, the best.
An important part of the preceedirigs was the
Anniversary,-of the New Hampshir:e.Flome Mis
sionary. Society,, hich 7 with reading of Secre
tary's and Treasurer's reports, and addresses,
occupied a large 'part of one of the morning ses
sions.: The repoit showed that a greater sum bad
beCn contributed thelast thin in any previous
year... There was. a sad picture drain of home
destitutions,'and of the - Culpable lack of practical
proofs of interest in maintaining the institutions
of the Gospel in rural districts and old chiirchi,
from which the strength has been dratirnby etni
gration. The course of en)igration in the farm
ing regions is deseribed as first carrying the
yourigpeople outiVest; and then, the old people
feeling lonely, sell out the farm, or make arrange
ments by Which they can move into the nearest
and most thriving settlement , in the neighbor
hood. Thus the churches in the ontskirtsa4 the
county die, or languish, and sometimes-tzilled
fields are abandoned to the encroachments of the
forest;`and the built up towns gain strength at
the loss . of the small district& And yet it is
difficult to stir up a due degree of interest in
these larger towns, in behalf of the parishes
which are transferring their strength to the
towns. The growing town of Keene, with its
two churches, wasiently excoriated by one of
the speakers for giving less than $lOO last. year
fOr State eyangelization. Much of the money
acknowledged by the New Hampshire`Society, it
should be
, stated, is'given for the general work
of the American Home Missionary Sciciety. An
extremely neglected out-of-the-world sort of popu
lation, on the narrow strip of sea coast belonging
to' New Hampshire; had lately been reached
through the 'zeal of a young soldier who had
been converted in the 'Union army, - and who came
home, as so many of our disbanded soldiers did,
not to curse but to bless the country which their
arms had helped to save. The'degraded, igno
rant people of this coast, who, within a few hoUrs
ride from -Boston and Salem, were, like some on
the Atlantic coast near Philadelphia.and New
York, practically heathen, have been perceptibly
raised in-morals and th'rift through the labors-of
this young self denying missionary. , has
been ordained for the work among them, on the
advice of the Missionary Society and the Coun
cil, without going through a-course of theologi
cal study. He, has stirred them up, with assist
ance from abroad, to build a Church, in the rear
ing of which the people labored :with their min
hands.
• The question of the maintenance of the New
England type of character in thrift, in contented
struggles with the hard, grudging soil, in morals,
and in strong religious convictions, is too large to be
considered here. Emigration to the remote and
fertile regions of the West has already; in no
small degree, transferred that type of characte'r
to those Teg,ions, 4 arid the whole policy of the na
tion feels to day the tremendous power of -New
England in the Northwest. And the original
New England, depleted year byyear of its best
native elements, beholds - its great manufacturing
centres and its large cities thronged with foreign
ers, who already threaten =to take political control
of these centres of population and influence.
As yet, we believe, quite enough of the old stock
remains =to give character to the whole. That
little territory may still remain, sublime in its rug
gedness, the nurse of heroic colonists, the mother
of statesmen, the motto " Dirigo," " I direct," of the
n orthernmost State, a truth for the future as for
the past of the nation; provided its present in
habitants courageously maintain its institutions,
and provided the prosperous churches of its towns
and cities watch and cherish the feebly burning
sparks of life in the regions'around. The power
of a living Christianity, which preserves the old
elements, will also be effective to assimilate the
new. Such societies as this of New Hampshire
are instrumentalities of the highest importance
in maintaining the New-England character.
The visit of the Delegate from the General
charged with the Christian salutations
_of the body to the .Association,, was most cor
dially received, especially as the sending of such
a delegate was among the last of the acts of the
distinctively New. School Church. It was an
illustration 'of love, to the end. The New School
Graneb, in agreeing to terms p.f,Union with the
Old, thus -forestalled the suggestion of a loss or
,decline of her traditional, attachment to New
England. Her admiration-for the best theology,
the Christian enterprise,.the virtues, the thrift,
the cultivated intelligence and the great names
of the Church of. Ney England was thus known
to be unabated. Her 'hope of the continuance
of this intercourse under ; the new circumstances
would be gratified by news of the appointment
of a delegate. from %the New Hampshire body,
to the General Assembly of, the united Church
Genesee Evangelist, No. 1217.
f Home & Foreign Miss. $2.00.
Address :-13341 Chestnut Street.
to meet in 1870; an appointment which had
been made among the earlier. proceedings of the
body.
It may turn out that in this question of main
taining official intercourse with the Congrega
tional bodies of New England, a pretty certain
test of the sympathies and tendencies of - the unit
ed body will be found.
We shall remember with interest the cordiality
of these brethren towards a:representative of the
New School Church; the fine devotional spirit
of their prayer:meeting ; the single-hearted
earnestness' of the' sea-coast missionary ; the
venerable form of father Barstow, who for half
a century had been pastor of the first church of
Keene, who not long ago celebrated his golden
wedding, and who took a vigorous part in all the
business of the Sessions ; and it was witti real
regret we took leave of them to enter upon our
homeward journey.
Down the valley of one of the rapid tributaries
of the ''Conneeticut—the Ashuelot—lay our
route; a streamlet made to pay toll to the genius
of industry that had seized the available points
on its banks, before it went to join the main
stream in rendering similar but greater services.
We soon debouched into the beautiful broad
valley of the Connecticut, green, fair and fertile,
brightened by the flashing waters of the crystal
clear river, and blirdered on either hand by a
range of bills of picturesque outline. There
was no lack of moisture here. The landscape
shone fair and glorious. Health and good.
,spirits were" afted oil the .charmed air. Towns
,famous in the Indian Wars of the Colony were
announced by the conductor, blending a sad and
softened romance with the harsh tones and dis
sonant roarlof the modern railway.
At Mt. Tom Station, we took a little steamer
of , eight horse power and 231 , inches draft.
Certainly, we had touched the two extremes; we
had coins from -Brobdignag to Lilliput. From
2800 horse power on the Sound to 8 horse power
on the Connecticut river; from an engine as
huge.as a church, to one which we could have
carried tMder our arm = this was no trifling
transitions- We enjoyed ourselves quite as well
onone, - as on tte otker. Landed at the foot of
Mt. Holyoke, we were driven as far towards the
summit as was practicable for carriages, and then
took a railway car which: was drawn by means of
an endless rope and horse power to the top, one
thousand feet in all from the Connecticut river.
Wliat a spectacle was that which burst upon
our sight!
_We stood at the centre of a circle
of vision nearly - seventy miles in diameter, and
had the poprilcus.heart - of New England at our
feet._ Right before us lay Northampton; to the
North was Amherst, to the South Springfield ;
near by in the - South-east was South Hadley and
the Seminary; Wachusetts Mountain shimmered
faintly on the East, Greylock and the Green
mountains
_rimmed the West; and ever present
Monadnoc lay sleeping upon the summits of the
Northern circle of hills. Amid all, wound the
bright Connecticut,. its, many graceful curves
suggesting a reluctance too soon to quit the
charming region.. We gazed and wondered and
tried to find room for the novel and delightful
sensations that crowded into the mind. We
asked the-question then, andask it now, whether
another sfot so privileged, and so well worth the
sight-seer's visit-is to be found in America; a
spot raised a thousand feet high, in the midst of
a region, which, on all accounts, one would so
much covet,to ye at such an advantage in posi
tion. A few hours afterwards we stood on top of
Springfield Arsenal. The view from that point,
so-famous -and so eally beautiful, seemed tame
in the comparison.
An unpleasant feature in the agriculture of
Connecti:mt River Valley to our eye was the ex
tensive culture of the tobacco plant. For miles,
a patch of tobacco would alternate regularly with
the Totato•patcla and the corn field. It is an
evil omen. We do not believe the material in
terests of the community will be promoted by the
raising of such kcrop. Its broad, heavy leaves
have a weedy look which contrasts it at once
with the wlaolesomer crops which it is beginning
to rival. We fully sympathize with the strong
resolution of the New Hampshire Association
dissuading the people from the culture of tobacco..
—Mr. Mitchell,. General Agent for Freedmen
of our Committee of Home Missions, is in this city
calling for immediate aid *to3he empty treasury
of this department. The 'Freedmen's Bureau
has ceased to furnish transportation, and a very
superior class of teachers is now offering for the
Committee's work. -Thirty students from Lin
coin University have been kept employed during
the vacation by the Committee, in preaching and
teaching. Mr. Mitchell calls for immediate con.-
tributions from. Sugda.,y-schoolsx_churches and. in,
di_viau4s.
MT. HOLYOKE.