Consummation of the Re-union in the United States. 415

approved by more than two-thirds of the Presbyteries connected with this branch of the church.

And, whereas, the other branch of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, now sitting in the Third Presbyterian Church, in the city of Pittsburg, has reported to this Assembly that said basis has been approved by more than two-thirds of the Presbyteries connected with that branch of the church; now, therefore, we do solemnly declare that said basis of re-union is of binding force.'

[Here follow some preliminary arrangements.]

"All other business having been concluded, the Assemblies met, in conformity to the plan proposed by the Committee of Arrangements, on Friday morning, Nov. 12th, at 9 A.M. Committees were sent from each body to the other, to announce from each to each the votes of the Presbyteries on the Re-union overture, and its full ratification in each body. Then, in each Assembly, the following resolution was adopted by a unanimous and rising vote :

Whereas, This Assembly, having received and examined the statement of the votes of the several Presbyteries on the basis of the Re-union of the two branches now claiming the name and the rights of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which basis is in the words following:-'The Union shall be effected on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis of our common standards; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments shall be acknowledged to be the inspired word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice; the Confession of Faith shall continue to be sincerely received and adopted, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and the government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States shall be approved, as containing the principles and rules of our polity'-does hereby find and declare that said basis of union has been approved by more than two-thirds of the Presbyteries connected with this branch of the church.

' And whereas, The other branch of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, now sitting in the Third Presbyterian Church in the city of Pittsburg, has reported to this Assembly that said basis has been approved by more than two-thirds of the Presbyteries connected with that branch of the church;

'Now, THEREFORE, WE DO SOLEMNLY DECLARE THAT SAID BASIS OF RE-UNION IS OF BINDING force.'

"From this moment the two bodies became organically ONE-constituting the one Presbyterian Church of the United States of America. Each Assembly was dissolved in the usual form, and another required to be chosen in like manner, to meet in the First Presbyterian Church in the city of Philadelphia, on the third Thursday of May 1870, at 11 A.M.

"After close examination, the Committee of Arrangements found the Third Presbyterian Church the most commodious room in the city for the union meeting of prayer and praise, solemn gratulation, and jubilation, which it was agreed should immediately follow the consummation of the Re-union. Accordingly, it was arranged that the New School Assembly should move in procession, two by two, headed by their officers, and their portion of the Re-union Committee, to the First

Church, and meet the other Assembly, marshalled and headed in like manner. Then the Moderators, followed by the other officers, the Re-union Committee, and the members, locked arm in arm, each member of one Assembly with one of the other. And so the two Assemblies, now, we trust, happily united, marched, arm in arm and two by two, to the union meeting in the Third Church. The streets, balconies, and windows along the line of march were filled with thousands of deeply interested spectators, handkerchiefs were waved from hundreds of hands, prolonged and hearty cheers rent the air.

"The streets were thronged all along the route of procession, and at the Third Church an immense assemblage had collected in anticipation of the opening of the audience room.

"When the head of the procession approached the church, the doors were thrown open, and the combined assemblies entered the centre aisle.

"The gallery had already been filled to overflowing, and a goodly number of vocalists occupied places about the organ. As the proces

sion entered, the audience rose and sang, to the tune "Lennox," the stanzas beginning:

"The officers of the respective Assemblies, and as many of the commissioners as could find room, were then invited to seats on the platform, which was soon filled to its utmost capacity.

"The pressure outside the church was immense, and in a few minutes -we might almost limit it to seconds-the spacious audience chamber, including the aisles, was literally packed with men and women. Thousands more would fain have entered, but that was impossible.

"The surroundings were crowded, not only with the vast Presbyterian and other population of Pittsburg and vicinity, but with thousands of ministers and people that had come in from all parts of the land to witness the august scene-a scene to be witnessed but once in a lifetime-a scene of such moral sublimity as occurs but once, if once, in a century. It was truly good to be there; it was a very Mount of Transfiguration. The Moderators shook hands in token of the union now accomplished between the two bodies over which they presided. Addresses, highly pertinent and eloquent, were made by the two Moderators, Doctors Musgrave, Adams, Fisher, John Hall, Judge Strong, William E. Dodge, Henry Day, and (in answer to a call from the audience) George H. Stuart, Esq., with appropriate prayers by Doctors Beattie, Hatfield, and Robert Carter, Esq. The chief scope and end of all their addresses, and of the whole service, was that the re-union ought to be signalised by a great advance in prayer, effort, and liberality in all the departments of Presbyterian evangelisation, and that, if it ended in mere exultation and glorification, without such advance, it would be a disgrace and calamity, rather than a blessing. It was also urged that there ought to be an immediate and special contribution, of the nature of a thank-offering for so great a boon, which should at once replenish and enlarge the resources of the various

Consummation of the Re-union in the United States. 417

institutions and agencies of the church, now weakened by the scantiness or endangered by the exhaustion of their funds; one that should at once lift theological seminaries, colleges, missionary boards, the education and support of ministers, every evangelic agency, to a higher grade of strength and efficiency. Dr Fisher, from the committee on this subject, offered the following resolution to the meeting:

'Resolved, By the ministers, elders, and members of the church here assembled, as in the presence and behalf of the entire body of the disciples connected with us in this land, and those beloved missionaries on foreign shores, now meditating our action with tender and prayerful interest, that it is incumbent on the Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America, one in organisation, one in faith, one in effort, to make a special offering to the treasury of our Lord of one million of dollars; and we pledge ourselves, first of all, to seek, in our daily petitions, the blessing of God to make this resolution effectual; and, second, that we will, with untiring perseverance and personal effort, endeavour to animate the whole church with the like purpose, and to secure the accomplishment of this great work before the third Tuesday of May 1871.

Resolved, That this preamble and resolutions be signed by the Moderators and Clerks of the Assemblies of 1869, by the members of the late Joint Committee on Union (and all the members of the two Assemblies), printed by the Stated Clerks, and sent to every pastor of our church.'

"This was adopted, after being amended by substituting 5,000,000 dollars. Let not the church come short of this high mark—she has wealth enough to reach it. May her zeal be in proportion, and may God speed the effort!

"There was a united celebration of the Lord's Supper in the First Church in the afternoon, and a large meeting in behalf of Foreign Missions in the Third Church in the evening, as there had been one in behalf of Home Missions in the First Church on the previous evening.

"Thus the re-union of the sundered Presbyterian Church is fully completed and inaugurated. What next? Shall this great body content itself with rejoicings and jubilations over this grand event? We quite agree with those who would count such an issue of the re-union of these great bodies simply a disgrace and a calamity. We trust that the energies of all, whatever may have been their hesitation or opposition at any previous stage of this movement, will now be devoted to rendering it, in every good sense, a success-a success not of pride, self-complacency, and vainglorious boasting, but a success of real inward unity, animating this external organic union, so that the one body may be inspired by one spirit; that it may be cemented and consolidated in a real, great, and glorious advance of truth, unity, and charity; in an immense growth of sound Christian evangelism, true piety, and of Presbyterian doctrine, order, polity, institutions, life, and manners. Among the periodicals now existing in the United Church, this belongs to the few planted in the original undivided church, years before the division. It then laboured to build up the church, and prevent disruption, by advocating the doctrines and order of our

standards against heterogeneous and divisive elements. It often incurred the censure of extremists on all sides, while approved by the great heart of the church it sought to edify on the basis of sound conservatism; and its labours have not been in vain, nor have we spent our strength for naught. The cardinal principles which we have maintained in regard to the immiscible nature of Congregational and Presbyterian polities; the conducting of church work by church agencies, and Presbyterian work by Presbyterian agencies; making the standards the only doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis of union, leaving to the several series of courts of the church to decide what deviations from their ipsissima verba are not inconsistent with the essentials of the system they contain, are now accepted as the true and characteristic principles of the re-united church. And in this church again undivided, with that charity which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, it will endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace; to promote wholesome progress and a sound conservatism; to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, against the triple alliance of rationalism, ritualism, and materialism; to study the things that make peace, and things whereby one may edify another; and to summon to its aid the ablest contributors, new and old, from all, of whatever past or present ecclesiastical connection, who are ready to make common cause with us in maintaining and spreading true Christianity, Calvinism, and Presbyterianism, to the end that

"SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, WE MAY GROW UP INTO HIM IN ALL THINGS, WHO IS THE HEAD, EVEN CHRIST: FROM WHOM THE WHOLE BODY FITLY JOINED TOGEther, and COMPACTED BY THAT WHICH EVERY JOINT SUPPLIETH, ACCORDING TO THE EFFECTUAL WORKING IN THE MEASURE OF EVERY PART, MAKETH INCREASE OF THE BODY UNTO THE

EDIFYING OF ITSELF IN LOVE."-Eph. iv. 15, 16.

Θεω μουω δοξα.

Ecclesia: Church Problems Considered.

419

XIII.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

Ecclesia: Church Problems Considered, in a series of Essays. Edited by HENRY ROBERT REYNOLDS, D.D., President of Cheshunt College, Fellow of University College, London. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row.

1870.

The remark has often been made, and there is certainly some truth in it, that a striking feature in the religion of the present time is a tendency in every section of the church to push its peculiar claims into prominence, and to assert these to their utmost extremes. In other words, each party seems determined, to use a Scottish phrase, to "ride on the riggin' of their kirks." To begin with the oldest, though not the most primitive, of our churches, the Romish, we need only appeal to the desperate zeal of the Ultramontane party in that church to estabish, with the aid of a pretended general council, the dogma of papal infallibility. In the Church of England we see a party equally intent on setting up the claims of apostolical succession and priestly power. Among ourselves there are some who display an ecclesiastical conservatism, to a degree which our ancestors, whom they are constantly quoting, never, we believe, contemplated, and which, from all we know of them, they would never have approved, had they lived to our day and in our circumstances; while on the part of English Nonconformists, there is manifested the same tenaciousness of party distinctions, the same resolution not to abate one jot or tittle of the essential principles of their constitution. To this tendency of the age, the present volume, we fear, can hardly be regarded as an exception. And yet it may be esteemed as a valuable contribution to the great cause of evangelical religion. The essays, nine in number, of which it is composed, are the productions of an equal number of Congregational divines, justly esteemed for their learning, talents, and piety. The problems which they consider are all connected with questions of present interest, and are the following:-1. Primitive Ecclesia; its Authoritative Principles and its Modern Representations, by John Stoughton, D.D.; 2. The Idea of the Church, regarded in its Historical Development, by J. Radford Thomson, M.A.; 3. The Religious Life and Christian Society, by J. Baldwin Brown, B.A.; 4. The Relation of the Church to the State, by Eustace Rogers Conder, M.A.; 5. The Forgiveness and Absolution of Sins, by the Editor; 6. The Doctrine of the Real Presence, and of the Lord's Supper, by R. N. Dale, M.A.; 7. The Worship of the Church, by Henry Allon; 8. The Congregationalism of the Future, by J. Guinness Rogers, B.A.; 9. Modern Missions and their Results, by Joseph Mullens, D.D. In so far as this volume aims at such a solution of church problems as might promise the healing of our lamentable divisions, and the promotion of a blessed unity among the churches of the Reformation, it must, we regret to say, be pronounced a failure. As Presbyterians of course we did not expect to find the authors at one with us in all points of discipline and government; but we were disappointed to see that in their representations of "the church," they have followed in the old traditional track marked out by the English Independents of former days, without any indication of a desire to modify their views on what we must regard as the main wall of partition between them and other churches. It seems strange to us that they should still insist with so much pertinacity on the meaning of the word "church" in the New Testament, as if that should settle all questions pertaining to church government; or as if the constitution of the Christian church depended upon proving that a church means only a