anirrifillt limillstrviait.
TIIUR';DXY, DECEMBER 23, 1869
REV. JOHN W. MEARS, D. D., Editor.
TIRE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.
Rev. Z. 11 Humphrey, D.D., Pastor of Calvary
Church.
Rev. Herrick Johnson, D. D., Pastor of the
First Church.
Rev. Dani. March. D.D., Pastor of Clinton St.
Church.
Bev. Peter Stryker, D.D., Pastor or N. Broad
St Church.
Rev. George F. Wlowell, It.D., Pastor of Green
Hill Church.
Rev. E. E. Adonis, D. D., Prof. in Lincoln Eni
versity.
111 r. Robert E. Thompson will continue to act
as Editor of the News Department.
THE YEA AND THE AMEN.
The seemingly casual, brief expressions of Bible
writers often open the way to the grandest truths.
Paul assuring the Corinthians that he was not
fickle-minded, lets slip, seemingly without a
deeper purpose than to strengthen that assurance,
a sentence in which a vast sweep of the divine
economy is included, and which suggests to us a
survey of all history and a search for the deepest
questionings of the human heart in all ages. For
all the promises of God in Him,—Jesus Christ,—
are Yea and in, Him Amen; or : How many so ever
are the promises of God, in Him is the Yea and
through Him the Amen. Jesus Christ is the
grand affirmation of the truth of God in all His
promises. In Him the purpose of Redeniption,
which includes all the purposes of God and is the
key to all the divine methodsof dealing with
man, is fulfilled. Without Christ; the divine
economy would be like an arch, springing from
strong and deep abutments and arising to vast
heights, but without a key-stone : a structure
incapable of upbearing the weight of human want
and sin, furnishing no sure pathway to a better
world, unsteady and certain to fall by its own
weight. Christianity is positive, authoritative,
historical, answering expectations, satisfying
wants, fulfilling hopes and promises, a point of
rest, a harbor of peace. Coming to Christianity,
we leave the region of guesses, of vague anticipa
tions, of moral and philosophical systems spun
out of the brain of the most exalted of fallible
human teachers; we emerge from the fire.mist in
which the myths of Greek and Roman and
Norseman and Persian and Aryan were born.
We phss beyond promise, type, prophecy. We
are in the region of fact, of history, of personali
ty, of results, of problems solved, of victory.
It is its own fault, if the world is still inquir
ing, groping and speculating after the true reli
gion. The time for that is gone by. The real
seeker for truth is not in a cave, with only a few
chinks opening into the light, as Plato pictured
him. We can cordially sympathize with Plato's
guesses, but not with the man who assumes to be
as ignorant to day as Plato was. Such a man
may indeed be in the dark, but it is because he
has burrowed away from the light, and gone into
voluntary eclipse, loving darkness rather than
light. What Plato foreshadowed and Socrates
sought, what the myths and cosmogonies of East
and West brokenly imaged forth, that the
Gospel gives us. In short all that which hastfloated
before the mind of man, as guess, suspicion,
theory, hope, that is given to us in the eternal
affirmation of the Gospel, that Christ is.
What is it which the best spirits of the world
have asked for, in all ages, which is not found in
Christ, more abundantly than they could ever
ask or think ? What purest longing and most
spiritual expectation of unenlightened men will
not be found rather to be a troubled dream, which
in Christ only became a waking reality ; what
are they but cloud palaces, which to us have be
come a city which bath foundations,whose builder
and maker is God; what make up the core of all
the best forms of man's religion, but divine
ideas, wandering up and down the world, till
oftentimes they bad well' nigh forgotten them
selves and their own origin, but which at length
clothed themselves in flesh and blood,and became
incarnate with the incarnation of the Son of
God ?* The Yea and the Amen, which was to
assure men in .their doubts, to satisfy their long
ings, to enlarge, transfigure and exalt their dim
conceptions to his own measure of truth and ex
cellenoe, was Christ.
The Greek fables of a descent into Hades and
of a rescue of the victims of that gloomy king
dom, are but troubled prophetic dreams of that
crowning fact of Christianity and of the world's
history, the bursting of the gates and the barriers
of the grave, on Easter morning, 1837 years ago.
The apothesis of heroes, the frequent " raising
of a mortal to the • skies," which crowded the
Greek and Roman pantheon with human names,
aro but the dim presentiment of the fact that the
Gmatest of mankind would also be divine. The
endless multitude of heathen no less than Jewish
sacrifices; the choice of the . purest and best for
victims; the voluntary offering of themselves by
the foremost men of the nation, like Deeins, to re
ceive uporftheir own heads the anger and curse of
the immortal gods, are a unanimous outcry from
the depths of the human heart for some means of
reconciliation.
The deep and painful consciousness of discord,
straggle and , sin, which breaks forth in all the
noblest utterances of the famous masters of rheto
ric and philosophy, in classic literature, and which
ranch c Hulsean Lectures.
has embodied itself in all the huge, crushing
systems of superstition, that for ages, have
darkened the world, are anticipations of the
Chribtian doctrine of sin and of the need of con
s ersion. Socrates half uttered the declaration :
Ye must be born again ; Plato speaks of the
necessity of a change from the shadows to the
light; both, indeed, with utterly inadequate
views of the deep spiritual meaning of which the
words were capable, but both feebly whispering
that which waited for emphatic affirmation in the
Yea and the Amen of Christianity. And the
dream of a perfect civil state which the great
Philosopher dreamed in his Republic, and the
various attempts of men and of conquerors to
found a universal social order which so sadly failed
and which left thinking men under such rulers
as Tiberius and Nero, in blank despair, are a
plain proclanmtion of the want of that kingdom of
heaven, which at last has been really founded on
earth by Christ.
At this late day, and with this aCcumulated
experience of the ages pointing to Christ, men
will not seek another Saviour. They will have
Jesus or none. The Jews are giving up hope of
a Messiah; the unbelieving world has no inten
tion of experimenting in new faiths. They are
not artificial growths. They can only spring from
a deep , unsatisfied want, which cannot exist under
the full and gracious provision of the Gospel.
The Yea and the Amen to all these wants has
been uttered. He whose religious nature is truly
awakened will find in Christ just what c he wants.
The experiment of a modernized heathenism
must fail. A Christ robbed of His divinity, and
ranked among the speculators, inquirers or great
est of human teachers, instead of being recognized
as the eternal positive answer to all inquiry, is no
Christ at all. Christianity, or no religion, Christ
or Atheism, Regeneration or Materialism : these
are the alternatives which men are considering
to-day.
THE PROBLEM OF CITY EVANGELIZA-
TION.
ROW WE , 1141VE,MET IT.
Since the division, thirty-two years ago, Pres
byterianism has nearly quadrupled itself within
the limits now covered by the city of Philadel
phia. The aggregate membership of the twenty.
nine churches occupying the field in 1836, was
5,440. The sixty-eight churches of the reunited
body number, according to the report in last
year's minutes : 20,116 (0. S. 10,128, N. S.
9,988), an increase of 270 per cent. This is a
growth much exceeding that of the Presbyterian
Church in the country at large ; which, as
already, shown, is but a little, over one hundred
per cent. (125). On the other hand, it some
what surpasses the rate of increase of the city
population. That must have been about 225,000
in 1836; now it probably does not reach 800,000.
A growth of less than 250 per cent.
The elements of this increase deserve to be
considered in estimating the problem before us.
The total immigration into this country from
the beginning down to the year 1839; is put at
less than one million ; while- for the ten years
from 1839 to 1849, it is known to be over one
million font hundred thousand, and for the
eleven years ending December 31st, 1860, it was
three millions, within a fraction. Without
doubt, the foreign population of our city has
grown far more rapidly than its native elements.
It is probably five or six times as great as it was
in 1836. In 1850 it was computed to be nearly
one third of the entire number of the inhabitants.
Over this element, it must with sorrow be ad
mitted,Ave have had but little, in fact almost no
influence. If we suppose there are now 250,000
foreigners in this city, and that there were only
50,000 in 1836, it will follow that the native
population has scarcely tripled itself since 1836.
It thus appears that a positive advance of some
magnitude has been made upon the native popu
lation by the Presbyterian church, since the di
vision.
Within the last five or six years, stimulated
especially by the noble example of Mr. Baldwin,
the former New School branch of the church
has shown unwonted zeal in the colonizing of
new churches and the erection of new buildings.
The dedication of Oxford Church on Sabbath,
December 12th, was the tenth that has taken
place within that period, in that branch of
the church alone; the buildings being com
pleted in every case but one (Bethesda), and
being all designed for comparatively recent or
ganizations. These ten churches reported 2212
members to the last General Assembly; they
have added about 6700 sittings to the church
accommodations of the city, and their new pro
perty thus acquired, including ground, is worth
not far from half a million of dollars. Two new
churches, thirteen hundred sittings, and one
hundred thousand dollars average gain per annum,
are indications of a hopeful degree of enterprise.
It implies a progress each decade of sixty-six
per cent. in that branch„ in new churches alone;
and if half of that rate of progress is attained
by the churches already established, a doubling
of strength in about telt years. This, has actu
ally been the rate of growth in the churches:of
this branch, they having increased fifty per cent.
in five years past.
While we have much reason to hope, we have
no assurance that this rate of church growth
will be maintained. It is exceptional in the
history of this branch; exceptional, wo might
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1869.
say, in the career of nearly every denomination
in the city. Their entire work in this line, the
whole city over, during the past five years has
but little exceeded that of this one branch of
one denomination; certainly, if we omit a few
very fine structures now in progress, chiefly for
old organizations, it does not double what the
late New School branch alone has done. A few
years ago—before the war—the Episcopal church
had a season of similar activity in city church
extension ; but that has long ago come to an
end. On the other hand, there are clear indica
tions, that the spirit for such work is yet rife
among our people. On all sides we hear that
the reunion is to be signalized by a powerful
movement which shall develop the strength of
the former Old School branch, and give us the
advantage of united counsels and systematic
efforts. On this field we may expect to enjoy
the advantage before the outside public, of the
prestige of reunion. The way is open to their
hearts. Reunion in their eyes is success; and
nothing succeeds like success.
Amid all; it is plain that while our great and
growing city has not, on the whole, gone bdyond
us since the division, yet
,the vast accessions of
foreign population have been, we may say, in no
degree reached by us with the ordinances of the
gospel. Even the Scotch and Scotck-Irish
Presbyterians are mostly accommodated in other
,branches of the Presbyterian church. It cannot
be said that we have made :an effort for the
evangelization of Celts or Germans. A little
German church has fallen nearly dead between
the two branches. A duty neglected for a gene
ration is now upon us, and calls for the exercise
of our united wisdom, strength and consecration.
ALWAYS-AFTER MONEY!
Yes, it is a fact. The church is always after
people's money. No sooner is one thing out of
the, way, than mother is got up. Nay ! we may
think ourselves very well off, if two or three first
class schemes are not on foot at once, every one
of the highest importance. Now it is a church,
now a mission chapel, now a college or semi
nary endowment, and now a collection to make
up deficiency in current receipts, now for a Sun
day-school at the West, or for Tract Society, or
Refuge or Wanderers' Home in the city; to say
nothing of the regular procession of church causes,
ten or twelve in a year. Yes, it is true; and it
is equally true, that it would be a very miserable
sort of church of God on earth that was not
always asking for money. Only a dead church
does not want money. That which is alive,
pushing, enterprising; with keen eyes fixed upon
the perishing world and seeking opportunity to
save it by preaching, _by missions, by tracts and
books, by seliouls and colleges, will of course be
asking money. That which is bold and aggres
sive;' which strides forward to keep pace with in
creasing population; which, in this age of vast
secular interests and commercial enterprises, is
thrilled with ambitioh to keep the church in the
advance, will want great sums of money. Just
as every call for men during the war proved the
steady purpose of the administration to maintain
our nationality and cheered the heart of the pa
triot, although to respond to it often proved ex
ceedingly inconvenient, al every call of the
church for enlarged • resources is really a new
proof of inward vigor and a presage of victory.
Imagine the Saviour weary with His people's
praying; complaining that these Christians are
always wanting •something ! Imagine a parent
frowning at a child for being hungry, and scowl
ing whenever it asked for bread! The child that
ceases to crave nourishment is sick, and all arts
are used to revive its appetite; when it begins to
ask for food again, there is joy in the house; the
sick one will get well. The surest sign of spirit
ual declension is a lessening of the number of
our requests before God. The individual
Christian for the church that ceases to ask from
God or man is becoming paralyzed.
You cannot push or extend a business without
putting in capital; and it is a great business
which the, church has to do. It has made most
encouraging progress. 'But has it gone so far, or
accomplished so much, in the conquest of the
world, that further outlay is needless ? Have we
built enough churches, or sent out enough mis
sionaries 1' Are there indications that the-city,
the land, the world is becoming so much better as
really to have no more need of our efforts? We
all, grumblers included, know better. The cry
of the church for means, is the cry of a perish
ing world for help. It is a sign that God's peo
ple understand the situation and have laid it to
heart. It means business. _V means advance,
enlargement, aggression. It means that the
church is not only in a healthful state, but re
solved, hopeful, practical, teeming with enter
prise, ambitious for God.
It can scarcely be less than a crime to grumble
at frequent appeals for money, or to wish that
some time they might, come to an end. Until the
millenium dawns,•that sort of grudging is crimi
nal. God has put you in a world full of needs
Be thankful, if you have means, that God does
not give you up to the rust and canker of selfish
ness, or suffer you to degenerate into a mere
watch.dog over your -property; but that He has
made you His steward, with the honorable duty of
dispensing His bounty, through the church, to,
a dying world.
Moderators Fowler and Jacobus propose
Thursday, Jan. 6th, as . a day of prayer for the
reunited church.
OUR ROCHESTER CORRESPONDENT.
ONTARIO PRESBYTERY.
This Presbytery held its annual meeting this
week at lilt. Morris. In view of the glorious
reunion of the two great branches of the Prcsby
terian Church, this was made a sort of jubilee.
The Presbytery of Genesee River (late 0. 5.,)
was invited to meet with them. This invitation
was cordially made, and courteously accepted.
The two bodies, covering substantially the same
territory, came together as though they were one,
and made a joyous occasion of it. The church
was beautifully trimmed with evergreens, with a
motto singularly appropriate upon the pulpit,
"THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE."
The opening sermon, striking and impressive,
was preached by Rev. L. D. Chapin, of East
Bloomfield. Rev. J. R. Page, of East. Aron, was
chosen Moderator. The morning prayer meet
ings were deeply interesting and tender, the ex.
ercises participated in by members of both Pres
byteries. In addition to this, by. invitation of the
Presbytery of Ontario, a special sermon was
preached on Wednesday evening by Rev. J. E.
Nassau, of the Genesee River Presbytery. Most
appropriately he discussed the doctrine of the
oneness of the Church : One doctrine, one plan of
salvation, all true believers are one in Christ Je
sus. The sermon gave great satisfaction.
We noticed that, as a part of the business of
the Presbytery, the pastors and elders were call
ed to account for delinquences in regard to col
lections. If the blanks were filled in the statisti
cal reports, very well. If not, the pastors and
elders were asked for the reasons of the failure.
They gave their reasons, in some cases good, in
others not quite satisfactory. The effect of the
inquiry was excellent. The delinquents promised
to do better. We think this custom would do
good in all out Presbyteries.
The communion sermon was preached by Rev.
I. N. Sprague, D:D., of Genesee, the two Pres
byteries uniting. It was a pleasant and profitable
season, all mingling together as one in this divine
service.
But the best part of the service was reserved
for Thursday evening, the closing and crowning-ex
ercise of the occasion. This was the real reunion
jubilee. Ample preparations were made, due no
tice,given, expectations aroused, and the large
church was filled with an audience ready to en
joy all that could be said or sung.
The venerable Dr. Barnard, of Lima, now
almost eighty years of age, was called to the
chair. A dozen or fifteen speeches were made by
different members of the two Presbyteries and
their invited guests. They were all in one key,
joyous and jubilant, thanking God for the
glorious event which He has brought about so
auspiciously in His wondrous providence, and
anticipating the great good that is. to result from
it: With united voice, all urged at the same time
the duty of greater consecration, increased efforts
and enlarged usefulness in the time to come. It
was a joyous meeting, one of the most intensely
interesting and pleasurable which we have ever
attended * It reminded us of the first united
meeting of the two Assemblies in the Second
church of St. Louis in 1866., it helped us to
understand something of the intense feeling
which pervaded the first meeting at Pittsburgh.
The pleasure almost amounted to pain. It was
time the two branches came together. Surely
they were more ripe for it.than some had dreamed.
But one of the episodes of the occasion de
serves special mention. This meeting of the
Presbytery of Ontario just completed fifty years
in which Dr. Barnard had served as Stated
Cleric, a man of rare wisdom and great gentle
ness, a sort of presiding genius over all, its delib
erations, and the friend of every one. It was
thought fit by the members of the Presbytery to
take some special notice of his services. It was
but the thought of the day. All was quietly ar
ranged, however, and in the midst of the even
ing service, he was taken entirely by surprise by
the present of a writing case, a gold, pen, and a
large photograph album, the latter to be filled as
fast and as far as possible with the faces of the
present and former members of the Presbytery.
It was a well deserved tribute of respect hand-,
sornely paid; the speech of presentation being
made by his admirable successor at Lima, Rev.
A. L. Benton. The venerable Doctor's reply
was characteristically modest, tender and touching.
We noticed, also, in the proceedings of the
Presbytery, that the Elders were called to lead
off, in giving in the reports on the condition of
the churches. It gave them a more prominent_
part in the proceedings of the occasion than they
have sometimes had'in the meetings of our Pres
byteries. It is the way to get the Elders to be
more faithful in attendance upon these meetings
—give theni something to do.
Rochester, December 18, 1859
—Old Pine Street church must positively en
large its accommodations, if it expects to cele
brate many more such S. S. anniversaries as that of
two Sabbaths ago. The mission 'school, the
church school, besides the general public, which
are always about when Pine Street Church
makes a demonstration, are almost too many for
any church building. Of course the exercises
were highly satisfactory, but as our reporter
could hot get in, we are obliged to take it on
trust. On last Sabbath the communion season
was observed, when an accession of twenty-four
was made to the church, half by profession. On
next Tuesday there is to be a :oeial church
gathering, which we may refer to again. Thank
God for the abounding health and vigor of Old
Pine Street church !
—Has not the time come for the consecration
of public opinion upon several of our Western
States, particularly upon Indiana, in regard to
their scandalous divorce legislation? They are
demoralizing the whole country. No matter
how elevated and Christian the legislation of any
other State may be, so long as the citizen may
repair to Indiana, and by a disgusting farce pro
cure a dissolution of the marriage tie, the status
of that sacred relation is practically the same
in the purest of the Commonwealths as in In
diana. The level of sentiment and of security
will rise no higher anywhere in the country than
where it is the lowest. What are the Christian
people of that State doing; what are Synods and
associations and Presbyteries doing; what is the
pulpit doing to raise public sentiment in that
State and to shame the community out of the
position of panderer to the gross lusts, vices and
disorders of the country at large ? Every engine
of influence, within and without the State,
should be vigorously plied to dislode it from a
position, which practically nullifies the laws of
the other States, on a matter of such supreme
importance. If necessary, we must seek con
gressional interposition to abate the nuisance of
the Indiana divorce laws.
—Father. Hyacinthe's reserve is pretty much
broken down; and the romance, and we may add
the dignity of his position, was somewhat dissipated
by his appearance as a lecturer. Well, we suppose
he must live, and lecturing is more honorable than
monkish mendicity. He spoke in French, in be
half of the French Benevolent Society, on Thurs
day week, at the New York Academy of Music.
The opening and closing sentences of his lecture,
which was on the "Government of Life," are
thus given by the reporters:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I, too, require to
give some explanation of my presence here to
night.. I came to seek in this country a few
weeks of repose between the struggles of yester
eve and those of the morrow. I came resolved
to be silent. I came to behold that grand nature
bearing an impress of the Deity, the more pro
found as the hand of man is less apparent upon
it. I came to look upon that young and vigorous
I:ration which, if it weakens not, will realize in
the future the greatest and the last intentions of
God on our race. I came here to listen and not
to speak. It happened, however, that in this
cosmopolitan city I found France, and was ap
pealed to by the charitable in behalf of sufferinc ,
France. . . . The foundation of your people
is the Bible, the Book that speaks of God, the
living Word of Jesus 'Christ. In an admirable
,manifesto from your President there shinei
through his words the Christian faith—a belief
in Jesus is at the root of the nation. And when
I return I shall tell Europe that I have found
here liberty associated with Christianity, and
have been among a people who do not think that
to be free they must be parted from God. IGreat
applause ] •
—The American Churchman, of Chicago,
says the knaves of Utah g are nearly all Yankees,
including the " apostles," " bishops," and " el
ders," and all who get the tithes ; while the
dupes are mainly very degraded European pea
sants, many of them from England and Wales,
and members by baptism of the English Church.
It says: " There never existed but one Mormon
Irishman, and a Mormon Irish woman is some
thing totally unknown to naturalists."
Paris, Dec. 16.—1 t is reported that the Em
press has instructed her Chamberlain to meet
Pere Hyacinthe at Havre, and dissuade him
from attempting to preach in Paris. Dec. 16.
Letters from Rome report that the Pope urges
the appointment of Galilean Bishops on the lead
ing committees. It is generally understood that
the object of the recent decree of the Pope, dis
solving the (Ecumenical Council in case of his
death, is to prevent the election to the Papacy
of any but, an Italian Cardinal.
Madrid, Dec. 9.—la Cortez, to-day, the Min
ister of State alluded to the assembling of the
Council at Rome, and intimated that strong
steps would be taken for the protection of Spain,
in case the Council should adopt measures hos
tile to her interests.
Borne, Dec. 16.—The Council has as yet been
unable to frame a Commission to regulate, the re
lations between the Church and State and de
fine the rights of each. Several votes have been
taken, but 'they were undecisive. The late de
cree providing for the election of a successor,
should the Pope die during the session of the
Council, was but a formality. The statement
that any modifications will be made in the, regu
lations of the Council is inexact. It is officially
settled that no discussion on this point will be
permitted.
France, Dec. 17.—The report that France
had sent a note to the Holy See, declaring the
proclamation, of the dogma of Papal infallibility
would release France from her political obliga
tions to the Concordat, is a frabrication. Cardi
nal Mathieu, Archbishop of Besancon, has left
Rome, and his departure 'gives rise to many
contradictory rumors. Dec. 18.—The sessions
of the Council will be resumed on Jan. 6th. The
French bishops have protested against the
Pope's interference in the deliberationi 'of the
Council. The Spanish bishops, both home and
colonial, sustain the Pope. Dec. 19th.—Cardi
nal Pentini, a native of Rome, died yesterday,
aged 72 years. There are now sixteen vacan
cies in the College of Cardiaals. It is under
stood that the Pope will make no nominations to
all the vacancies while the (Ecumenical Council
is iwsession. •
GENESEE
FOREIGN ITEMS.