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New Series, Vol. VI, No. 44.
Strictly in Advance $2.50, Otherwise $3.
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THE ENGRAFTED WORD.
This language implies that the word is alive.
Only the most flourishing and thrifty cuttings
are used as grafts. If they are dead, they can
not be grafted even upon a living stook. The
word whioh is to be grafted upon the regenerated
nature, is no dead abstraction. It is no mere
book like other books. It is not even the pro-
And of a supernatural effort, which inspired its
authors and then left 'them, and their work for
ever. The virtue of its inspiration cleaves to it
still; not to its mere letters, or its series of pro
positions, but to its matter as apprehended by
the living spirit of man. To that, it is quick and
powerful, a discerner of the thoughts and in
tents of the heart. It communicates, like the
living graft to the stock, its own life to the mind.
It changes and ennobles human nature, and makes
it bear'the fruits of righteousness instead of the
Dead Sea fruits of sin.
But the stock must be alive, no less than the
graft. The nature dead in tYespasses and sins
cannot receive with meekness the engrafted word.
Life—spiritual life—in the stock, alone can re
spond to life in the graft. The spiritual life of
the regenerate man must flow through the chan
nels, must penetrate the manifold avenues, must
blend with the life, of the word. It must appro
priate the life 'of Scripture, and carry •its own
daily life and growth onward through the rules
the examples and the spirit of Holy Writ.
There are times when every earnest student or
devout reader of Scripture, so to speak, lives into
the Scripture, far more than others. His peculiar
experience gives certain Scripture peculiar perti
nence and power to his soul, It is full of mean
ing. It seems as if written on purpose for him.
His whole being finds room in its expressions.
With what eagerness does the mind, long bur
dened with a sense of sin, grasp at length some
one of the texts carrying the Gospel offer of for
giveness to the penitent 1 How do - the familiar
words now flame oat with strange power and
beauty, and what a flash . of ovbrwhelming light
and joy do they send to every ,darkened corner
of his soul! Perhaps no part of Scripture is
grafted on more: lives of God's people than the
Psalms. " A religious Man," says Mr. Barnes,
in his Introduction " is rarely, if ever, placed
in circumstances, where he will not , find some
thing in the Psalms appropriate to, his circum
stances." Luther had the 17th verse of thallBth
Psalm—")[. shall not die but live and declare
the works of the Lord " written on his study
wall, and he wrote : ",This is my psalm, which
I love. Though I love all the Psalms and the
Scriptures, yet have I had such experience of
this psalm, that it must remain and be called my
psalm; for it has been very precious to me, has
delivered me out of many troubles, and without
it neither Emperor, kings, the wise and prudent,
nor saints could have helped me."
Each great age of the chureh.seizes some por
tion of God's word, and projects into it, its life, finds
new applications of its meaning, and new depths
of its truth. When the whole heart of human
ity throbs with new necessities, it finds treasures
in the Scriptures just suited to its wants, though
it has scarcely had a conception of their exis
tence before. Want, anguish and yearning of
soul give the interpreter's insight. Thus it was
at the Reformation. Men, disenchanted of the
gorgeous - illusion of a great ecclesiastical 'fellow
ship, which could relieve them of all personal re
sponsibility for their sins, turned in a mighty an
guish of spirit, and clung to those portions of
the divine oracles which spoke of the true sin
offering, and of personal justification through a
divine Mediator; and the writings of Paul be
came the breath of life to,their: self-condemned
souls. They appropriated them, lived in them,
found them all aglow with divine fullness and
splendor of meaning, such as they had never
suspected in them before.
To-day the Church seems to be living more in
the Gospels. These it , especially is searching
with marvellous industry. • The peCuliar results
of the studies of the Reformers are reckoned
among the Church's attainmentfinished for
the present, at least. And now the demands of
philosophy and the pressure of unbelief are com
pelling us to form to ourselves, out of the ma
terials of the Gospels, a more complete image
than ever before, of the diVineluman person of
the living Christ. And we are sure that new and
wonderful light is breaking forth from this por
tion of the divine word. Let us not then be
satisfied with, or live wholly in, the results of
past ages of Scriptural inquiry. In the language
of another, "Let us labor, that through prayer
and through study, through earnest knocking,
through holy living, that inexhausted inexhats
tible Word may render up unto us oust truth—
the truth by which we must. live, the truth, what
soever that be, which more than .any other, will
enable us most effectually to do that work which
our God would hue done by us in this the day
of our toil."
THE RE-UNION AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.
The New. Presbyterian Church in the United
States must be a missionary church. Upon the
vast and now wide open, field of heathenism, she
must aim by God's help to do a great work.
Carrying a perishing world upon her heart, and
conscious of large resources, she must be dis
satisfied with any small measure of service and
success in its behalf. In this consecrated hour
of re-union, especially, will she behold in a new
light, all her plst labors, and will feel unwonted
yearnings and heart-throbs fora measure of success
in the future far exceeding any attained in the
past. And if any one of the channels of work
for the Master which she is now expected to
adopt,—that of foreign missions for example,—has
proved comparatively unsuccessful in, the past,
what wonder that some voices are heard, asking
her to pause, and for her own and for the dying
world's sake, to ponder seriously the expediency
of persisting in the old 'course under the new
circumstances? What wonder, -if that large
part. of the Presbyterian Church which has for
over half a century co-operated with the Ameri
can Board, should express some reluctance to part
with an organization which shows results in one
year, about equal numerically to the net results
of the thirty-five years of the organization with
which they are now asked to co-operate ? Re
union means progress, if it is anything but an
empty name. If that is its meaning to the mem
bers of the late Old School Church, why should
they be startled with a kindly meant proposal to
bring their slowly-working missions into con
nection with one of the greatest, most alive and
most prosperous of the missionary Boards of
Christendom,? Would not such
,a movement better
harmonize with the progressive spirit and the
grand Christian aspirations of Re-union, thati - its
opposite? And which one of the Concurrent
Declarations is violated, in letter or spirit, by a
proposal which, if accepted, would unite Old and
, New School in one Board, just as completely as
the alternate course would do ? The Sixth
Article of the Concurrent Declarations says:—
" There should be one set of Committees or
Boards for Home and Foreign Missions," etc.
We desire but one. The change we suggest
would leave but one. Let the whole united
Church adopt the American Board as its organ.
Then let there "be but one set of Committees
or Boards." On the other hand, if the Pres
byterian Board becomes the recognized organ
of the united Church, we shall 'say with equal
emphasis : Let there be one set of Committees or
Boards. Let there be no flirtation after marriage;
no scattering of interest and energy in diverse
directions. Do we want any more of that, after
what we have experienced in the New School
Church? With whichever Board it is, let' the
alliance be open, square and hearty. Up to a
certain point, we may not only cherish but ex
press. our preferences and strive to communicate
them to others. After that we know our duty,
and God helping, we expect to do it. We think
there has been undue haste and a defective sense
of the right of free discussion, in the cry of dis
loyalty which . has been raised in some quarters
at our former suggestions on this subject.
But has the American Board so much, the ad
vantage of the Presbyterian Board as an evan
gelizing agent ?' Upon this point, we have been
answered by " a member , 9f the Presbyterian
Board," in The Presbyterian of this city and in
The Pi'esbyterian Banner of Pittsburgh. The
material parts of his defence, are such as : The
greater age of the American Board and its mis
sions. It had the start by twenty-two years of
the Presbyterian organization. Certainly, this
must be taken into the account. Let us then go
back to an earlier date in the history of these
organizations. Take the'American Board at the
age of twenty-one or twenty-two years, before the
great movement in the Sandwich Islands. At
that time (1833) according to Mr. Newcomb
(Cyclopedia of Missions, pages 110 and 112) it
had received $1.307.050, and counted 1940 co&
municants in its churches., The Presbyterian
Board in 1854, twenty years after the establish
ment of its first mission, had received $1..490,795,
and had 512 church members on its rolls. And
it is to be remarked that if the Presbyterian
Board is twenty-two years younger, it has had the
great advantage of the experience and the Mis
sionary literature created by its predecessors, who
had to spend years in tentative efforts and in break
ing down prejudices, which have never needed
to be quite so thoroughly done again.
Another point in the defence, is the compari
son drawn between contiguous mission fields oc
cupied by the two Boards. Here let the writer
speak for himself:
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1869.
"The American Board commenced its Western
African Mission in 1834; the Presbyterian
Board its Corisco Mission inlBso. These are
contiguous to 'each other. In 1861, when the
Memorial Volume of the A. B. C. P. M. was
published, the membership of the Presbyterian.
Mission was four times that of the former, audit
had then an actual membership just one-half
greater than the Gaboon Mission had received
from the beginning. Nay, in three years, in a.
single church at Benita, there were more mem
bers-in its communion than were received in the
Gaboon Mission for twenty six years. Which
mission, then, has received the Pentecostal re
cognition ?"
After the use of this word " Pentecostal," per
haps the reader will be surprised tOjeara that
the total membership in the Corisco - Mission last
year (according to Schem) was 88 at , two of the
stations, and four, have been added at the other.
West Africa is the, most unprodUctive and most
costly in men, if not money, of all missionary fields.
The American Board has been gradually with
drawing from it. Our brethren of the other
board deserve the. highest credit for their heroic
persistence - in that field; but it still waits for
Pentecostal recognition. That seems rather to
have been given to the English societies laboring .
in that quarter. Next, the writer compares the
nearly contiguous missions of the two Boards in
India, where the progress is represented to be
nearly the same in both. The Presbyterian Mis
sions begun in 1834, number 449 communicants;
the Mahratta Mission of the American Board, be
gun
in 1813, has 610. Had the ,Madura Mis-.
sion of the American Board been selected for
comparison, it, would have appeared that though
founded the same year with the Presbyterian Mis
sion, it reckoned 125 D communicants last year.
The Arcot Mission in India, founded in. 1854,
and since handed over to the Reformed Dutch
Brethren, a year ago reported 439 members.
The writer 'then turns to China, another of the
proverbially hard fields. There he finds the
American ahead of the Presbyterian, Board, in
Canton, by twelve years, while ,the t temmunicants
favor the younger mission nearly five-fold; being
as 579 to 119. Here 'too, it should nott be
overlooked that the Board has surrendered its
most, flourishing mission in China—Amoy—to
the Reformed Dutch. Founded later than either
of the above named (in 1844) it reported last
year 701 members, exceeding the total of both
the preceding.
Mention is also made of the Presbyterian Mis
sion, in Brazil, which according to the writer, was
begun in .1859, according to Newcomb, (Cycl. p.
643) in 1853. The writer in The Presbyterian
says the membership of its four churches is 216.
The membership of the Presbytery of Brazil in
the 0. S. minutes is given at 83. If, however,
the writer is correct, and we deduct 216 from
1836, the -total membership of the churches of
the Presbyterian Board, we have left 1620, (in
stead of 1750 as we stated it,) belonging to its
chuiches on heathen ground. We think it proper
to make this deduction, since the churches con
tributing to the American Board generally use
the A. and F. Christian Union as their channel
of operations among Roman Catholic countries.
Perhaps we did wrong to confine our view to
these two Boards exclusively. But if we extend
the comparison to other societies we shall not
find the Presbyterian Board put in any better light.
Take the American Baptist Missionary Union.
Thirty-nine years after its organization it had
received, according - to Newcomb, an aggregate of
$1,663,793, and had 10,261 communicants on
heathen ground. The American Baptist Free
(anti -slavery) was 25 years old in 1868,
when, according to Salem, they reported 5862
members in the Bassein. (Africa) Mission alone.
The missions of the M. E. Church, begun in 1820,
thirty-four years afterwards, had 2637 members
on heathen ground. 'The American Missionary
Association, (Anti -Slavery) formed in 1846,
counted in seven years 1160 members on the
foreign field. The two missions of the Ref.
(Dutch) Church which may be said to be fairly
in operation, Arcot, India, and Amoy, , 'China,
were last year, respecti;i-ely 24 and 12 years old,
and they numbered 1140 communicants.
It seems to us a conclusion impossible to be
avoided that, judged by numerical results, the
Presbyterian Board of Missions must be reckoned
among the least successful of all the attempts of
the American Churches to evangelize the world.
Those who have stood by it for thirty-six years,
and have continued to pour out their wealth, in
no stinted measure, during all those years, in its
support, have shown rare degrees of faith and
patience, which it is far from us to disparage.
But should they be greatly surprised or hurt if
those who have been associated with one of the
most prospeious and greatly blessed of all mission
enterprises, pause when they are asked to leave
it, perhaps to cripple it, and to adopt in its
stead, an agency whose 'history has been so differ-
ent ? Would not pure zeal for the Master natur
ally suggest the invitation we have given to the
supporters, of the Presbyterian Board, to turn the
whole wealth and energy of the Presbyterian
Church lato a channel where a large portion of
it has been so suecesifully employed ; to strengthen
instead of weakening one of the most signally
favored of missionary enterprises, and to give the
heathen,world'nan illustration of. Christian unity
as impressive to their minds as the Reunion will
`be upon the entire home field ? To us it'seemed
that a duty won).4%unperformed, if this sugges
tion' were not made. We have madeit. If it
fails, we are content.
AN ORGANIZATION PERFECTED.
The.recent installation of a pastor over the 0.
S. Church in Newburyport, Mass., proires still
more curious in its details, than the curt re
pods which first reached us had led us to sup
pose. When, this congregation came under Pres
byterial control,, it reserved certain rights, one
of which was the privilege of asking the neigh
boring chnrches and pastors of the Congregation
alist body,te unite with it in the installation and
dismissal ,of its pastors, and other business of
impoitance. This right has long remained in
abeyance, but was revived on the present occa
sion, and the neighboring Congregationalist
Churches were invited to be, present by their
pastors and lay delegates, on the day and hour
fixed by Presbytery for the installation. But
what was, the Presbytery to do with these Con
gregationalist delegates ? One stickler for Pres
byterian order -tried to cut the knot, by moving
that,they,be invited to sit, as corresponding mem
bers:of Presbytery. But the elder who repre
sented.the Newburyport church entered his ear
nest protest against this step; as a violation of
the reserved rights of the Chutch. -This led to
a long discussion, and was finally voted. down by
the 'resbytery itself, the Congregationalists lbok
ing-on, probably tb their edification,, c'e'rtainly .to
their amusement. When finally it was decided
that these pastors and lay. delegates were not: to
be put on a footing, in which they would, have a
voice: but no vote, the question recurred—on
what footing were they to be placed? A motion
now, came from the, other side that the Presbytery
adjourn, and : a, new, body be constituted• of all the
pastors, elders and lay delegates present, and
that the' Moderator and clerk of the Presbytery
be the officers of the new body. This was agreed
to, and this Presbygational body proceeded to
do the work for which they hail assembled. The
examination of the pastor ele was but a short
one, for dinner was waiting, and the other exer
cises were postponed till evening.
We may surely congratulate our 0. S. brethren
on their growth in catholicity and breadth of
view, when we see a Presbytery thus stepping
down from the lofty platform of jure divino ex
clusivism, to welcome their brethren of the Pu
ritan faith and order. We trust that there will
be no disposition to repudiate or censure this
Presbytery of Boston for their magnanimous act.
Even Drs. Backus and Smith, we hope, will re
lax the severity of their frown, and join with the
majority of the Presbytery of Baltimore in dis
approving of the hard words they have hurled
at unordained elders, and Presbygational
churches. We rejoice in every indication of
cordial good feeling between those that hold to
the Genevan faith and order, and those that
unite the Genevan faith and the Puritan order..
THE TOTE ASCERTAINED.
The newspaper organs of the Old School
branch have received such intelligence from the.
Presbyteries that, last week, they were able to an
nounce the fact that two thirds of the one hun
dred and forty-three PresbYteries of their Church
had given an affirmative answer to the Assem
bly's Overture on Reunion. As our own Presby
teries are without exception voting upon the
same side ;as Dr. Hatfield early in October had
received more than fifty responses from, the New
School Presbyteries, all in the affirmative, and as
all our papers haVe been adding every week to
the number, we may regard it as certain that the
required seventy-six of the one hundred and
thirteen,,,Neiv School Presbyteries have given, or
will give, the ,affirmative answer to the Overture;
and that the greatest ecclesiastical movement in
the American Church, and the greatest volun
tary Reunion movement' since the divisions of
the Reformation has been finally decided upon.
Although the fact has been for months confi
dently anticipated, we cannot announce it as thus
ascertained, without a feeling of awe. It is,
indeed, true that the division of thirty-two years
ago is to be blotted out ; that a signal exainple
is to be given to the world of the living power of
Christian charity; that the reprOach,of division
Genesee Evangelist, No. 1.21.
f Home & Foreign Miss. $2OO.
Address:-1334. Chestnu;, Street
which has so long rested on Christendom, and
especially upon Presbyterianism, is to be ma
terially lessened, and that the multiplication of
the agencies of evil in the world is to be met by
the consolidation of two of the larger and more
influential bodies, who, for many years, have
worked apart and in jealousy of each other.
We stand in awe at the new and serious re
sponsibilities it brings upon us all. We, who '
have been seriously estranged, are now, indeed,
to dwell within one Church home. The old tab
ernacles are both to come down, and a new one,
common to both, is to be occupied. Charity,
confidence, forbearance, love,—pure, hearty, fer
vent, must take the place of coldness and mis
trust. Clannishness must be put aside. Like
kindred drops we must flow together. And this
we must do in such a manly, generous way, as
not to sacrifice, 'or to expect from others the sac
rifice, of differences, but as comprehending them
in one elastic,
,yet truly sound, organization.
Without perfect homogeneousness, we must found
a genuine peace. It is easy to sing in unison, but
our work is the nobler one of harmonizing dif
ferent tones in one glorious psalm of praise and
service
In this solemn hour, to which generations will
look back. as to one of the landmarks of the
Church's progress and history, what better can
we, the actors do, than confess our faults to God
and to one another, and ask forgiveness of both?
What better than earnestly to pray that the whole
work may be manifestly the Lord's, and that
man'a,wisdom and activity may be but the,out
goings of the mind of the'Spirit, in every coming
step of the movement ? What better than to
reconsecrate oneself to the simple service of the
Master in redeeming a lost world, so that the
coming together of these two Churches with one
accord may be with the manifest and unwonted
outpouring of. the Spirit upon all the members ?
Their separation has not been without great ad
vantages_;. what may we not look for from their
Reu - uidn ?. If our fall into division has been
" the t riches of the world," how much more our full
ness. If our casting. away one another has
_prompted to more numerous and wider measures
for evangelizing men, shall not our reconciliation
be as "life from the dead"?
A REMARKABLE ANSWER TO PRAYER.
Last July, on the Sabbath of our Communion,
there was sent in an earnest request that the
united prayers of our people should go up to
God in behalf of a son. He had suffered two
hemorrhages of the lungs and it was feared that
he could not live. We were asked to pray that
God would spare him, and that this child of
early baptism and consecration might be brought
to Christ. On that day and on the Wednesday
evening follawing, he was especially remembered
at the throne of Grace. From that Sabbath he
began to gain strength, and to-day he is in as
good health apparently as ever before. But
what is better than all, he feels that during the
past few weeks he has become a Christian.
This young man is, a civil engineer, and has
just received a very flattering appointment from
the English Government. England has pledged
herself to build 14,000 miles of Railroad in
Indi'k ' and to defray a portion of the expense.
The authorities there desired to have some
American Engineer to show them our modes of
Railroad construction, and this young man is
the one chosen for the purpose. Before this
will greet the eyes of the public,she will have
sailed, intending to be absent three years. It
was his earnest desire before leaving home to
confess Christ before men. As our regular
Communion would not come till January, we
held an extra service :last Sabbath morning,
when he was received into the membership of
the Walnut street Presbyterian church. It was
a solemn and interesting occasion. A_ whole
family were there to commune with him for the
first time. He is the last of eight living child
ren to enter the church, and thus they sat an
unbroken family in Christ, around the table of
our Lord.
How an incident like this ought to stimulate
our faith What an encouragement for united
S. W. D.
prayer
—lt is a fair illustration of the inconclusiveness
of some of the arguments used in propping
theories of the immense antiquity of man, that
the picture in the very frontispiece of Sir Charles
Lyell's book on the subject, designed to give an
idea of the lake dwellings of Switzerland, is
founded upon a sketch of an existing village in
New Guinem Mr. Wallace, in his "Malay
Archipelago," Page 500, says he spent some time
in the very village which was the original of
Lyell's drawing. We need not go into antiquity,
or even, into history, to find lake-dwelling, corn.
xnunities.