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 Patterson, Robert M. 1832- 
 
 1911. 
 American Presbyterianism m 
 its development and growth 
 
, ,,^^,^ , ,, (* MAR 15 1909 
 AMERICAN W _^._. 
 
 PRESBYTERIANISM 
 
 IN ITS 
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. ROBERT M. PATTERSON, D. D., LL.D. 
 
 Author of "Paradise;" "Visions of Heaven for the Life on 
 Earth;" "Elijah, the Favored Man," etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 
 
 1S96 
 
Copyright, 1896, by 
 
 THE TEUSTKKS OP THB 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 
 
PREFATOEY NOTE 
 
 This volume gives the results of years' patient 
 reading of records, collection of facts and figures, 
 and comparisons of periods and of denominations. 
 The writer cannot here mention all the Church his- 
 tories and historical sketches that he has laid under 
 tribute. He may say, however, that all the pub- 
 lished official records of our Church from the be- 
 ginning and from year to year, and the National 
 Census reports by decades from the beginning, 
 have been minutely studied. Especially has the 
 just-published volume, on the churches, of the 
 census of 1890, been largely used. That volume 
 is a wonderful revelation. 
 
 The writer hopes that he has made a little 
 volume that will be a thesaurus for permanent 
 reference, and not merely a pamphlet for present 
 reading. It would have been easier to make it 
 four times the size : his desire has been, by con- 
 densation, to provide a vade mecum for conve- 
 nient use. 
 
 It should be noted that wherever figures are 
 given for " last year," or " now," the date is 1895. 
 
 R. M. P. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Its Organic Development 13 
 
 Its Beginning 14 
 
 Under the General Presbytery 15 
 
 Under the Synod 17 
 
 During the Schism 19 
 
 Under the Keunited Synods 19 
 
 Synodical Transformation 23 
 
 Under the General Assembly 25 
 
 During the Division 28 
 
 Since the Eeunion 29 
 
 Reconstruction 31 
 
 Enlargement and Consolidation 32 
 
 II, 
 
 Numerical Progress 34 
 
 Weakness for a Century 34 
 
 Present Strength 37 
 
 Strongest Church in the State 38 
 
 All the Protestant Churches 39 
 
 The Presbyterian Family 39 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Methodist Family 40 
 
 Proportionate Presbyterian Growth 41 
 
 in. 
 
 Philadelphia 45 
 
 All Denominations 45 
 
 Presbyterian the Strongest Now 46 
 
 Eighteenth-century Weakness 47 
 
 This Century's Growth 47 
 
 Churches 47 
 
 Communicants 48 
 
 Increase of Contributions 49 
 
 A Later Decrease 51 
 
 IV. 
 
 Causes of the Growth 53 
 
 Adaptation to American Society 53 
 
 A Failure 54 
 
 The Eldership 57 
 
 Elasticity of the System 58 
 
 Development of the Westminster System 61 
 
 IN THE NATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Flickering BEGmNiNGS 67 
 
 Varied National Origins 67 
 
 Isolated Ministers and Congregations 68 
 
 In Virginia and Maryland 69 
 
 New York 69 
 
 Long Island 70 
 
CONTENTS, 7 
 
 Page 
 
 New Jersey 70 
 
 North and South Carolina 70 
 
 Huguenots 70 
 
 Pennsylvania 71 
 
 New England 71 
 
 Subjects of Persecution 71 
 
 Contracted Field of the Presbytery 72 
 
 Eighty Organized Years 73 
 
 II. 
 
 All Denominations in the U. S 74 
 
 National Census Keports of 1890 74 
 
 Congregations, Communicants, Edifices, Accommoda- 
 tions, and Value 74 
 
 The Eight Largest Denominations . 75 
 
 The Remainder 75 
 
 Relative Strength of the Eight 76 
 
 The First Four 77 
 
 In the Largest States 78 
 
 Southern Church Accommodations 79 
 
 Two Peculiar States 80 
 
 III. 
 
 The Presbytebian and Reformed Churches .... 82 
 
 The Northern 83 
 
 The Cumberland 83 
 
 The Cumberland (Colored) 84 
 
 The Southern 84 
 
 The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist 85 
 
 The United Presbyterian in North America 85 
 
 The Associate Church of North America 86 
 
 The Associate Reformed Synod of the South .... 86 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian Synod and General Synod 87 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 The (Dutch) Keformed in America 87 
 
 The (German) Eeformed in the U. S 88 
 
 The Christian Reformed 88 
 
 IV. 
 
 The National, Cumberland, and Southern 90 
 
 Their Titles 91 
 
 The National (or Northern) Church 91 
 
 The Cumberland 91 
 
 The Southern 92 
 
 The Cumberland (Colored) 92 
 
 Their National Distribution 93 
 
 Their Combined Strength 95 
 
 In Reports of 1895 95 
 
 The Comparative Summaries 96 
 
 V. 
 
 Numerical Increase 98 
 
 Synods and Presbyteries 98 
 
 Ministers and Congregations . . 99 
 
 Fourscore Years Ago and Now 99 
 
 During the Revolution 101 
 
 Communicants 101 
 
 Patriotism of Presbyterians 102 
 
 Communicant Growth 104 
 
 Old and New Schools 105 
 
 Benevolent Contributions 106 
 
 Present Missionary Work 107 
 
 Home Missions 108 
 
 Missions for Freedmen 109 
 
 Foreign Missions 110 
 
 Missionary Communicants Ill 
 
 Women's Societies 112 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Congregational Moneys 112 
 
 Additions 112 
 
 Infant Baptisms 113 
 
 Adult Baptisms 113 
 
 Sabbath-schools 114 
 
 Colleges and Theological Seminaries 114 
 
 The Statistical Tables 114 
 
 The Century's Additions and Contributions . . . 115 
 
 Kecent Decrease of Contributions 116 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lessons from the Comparisons 118 
 
 Moral and Social Development 118 
 
 Educational 119 
 
 Active and Benevolent Work 120 
 
 Relative Numerical Growth 121 
 
 Two Sister Denominations 122 
 
 Revivals and Culture 127 
 
 Devotion to Civil and Religious Liberty 128 
 
 The Divine Message 131 
 
IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It is proposed in the first part of this little 
 volume to exhibit the organic and numerical 
 growth of Presbyterianism in the State of Penn- 
 sylvania. Much of the history of American Pres- 
 byterianism has been made within the bounds of 
 this State. The first Presbytery, the first Synod, 
 and the first General Assembly were organized on 
 its soil. The supreme judicatories of the Church 
 for long had their regular annual meetings here. 
 An important part of the organized strength of 
 the Church has always been here. The popula- 
 tion of the State is itself a good type of the well- 
 established and settled American people, as the 
 Church in it is of the fully-developed Presbyterian 
 Church. The study of it will therefore be a study 
 of American Presbyterianism in its best form, and 
 
 13 
 
14 AMERICAN PRESBYTEBIANISM. 
 
 will organically connect itself with the further 
 study of the whole American field, in the second 
 part of the volume. 
 
 Its Beginning. 
 
 William Penn, a name to be honored to the 
 latest generations by all Christian freemen, and 
 not merely by the "Society" to which he be- 
 longed, brought no Presbyterians with him when 
 he came to take possession of the colony, nor did 
 he find any here, though there was a little Dutch 
 congregation in New Castle, Del. There were 
 European settlers here before him. The Dutch 
 had explored the Delaware in 1614 ; the Swedes 
 had erected a fort in 1637 ; the English under a 
 grant of Charles II. to the duke of York had 
 taken possession of New Castle in 1664 ; Chester, 
 at first called Upland, had been the seat of a 
 court as far back as 1672, at least ; some Welsh 
 had settled here in 1682, the year of Penn's ar- 
 rival. But, as far as we know, there were no Pres- 
 byterian settlers among the pre-Pennites ; and the 
 hundred colonists who were in the " Welcome " 
 with Penn were mostly Friends. 
 
 The Friends, the Episcopalians, and the Bap- 
 tists had taken possession of this field before our 
 ecclesiastical ancestors appeared upon it. 
 
 The first fact, and that only an obscure hint, in 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 15 
 
 Pennsylvania Presbyterianism does not appear 
 until 1692, eight years after the founding of the 
 colony. Nor has Pennsylvania within its limits 
 the first Presbyterian Church that was organized 
 in these United States of America. 
 
 An early Baptist sketch says that " upon the re- 
 quest of the Baptists and Presbyterians " in April, 
 1695, "the Rev. John Watts of Pennipack con- 
 sented to preach at Philadelphia every other Sun- 
 day, and continued thus to officiate until 1698. 
 Whenever there were Presbyterian ministers in 
 town they officiated, and for three years the mem- 
 bers of the two sects got along amicably." 
 
 In 1698 the Rev. Jedediah Andrews began to 
 preach regularly in Philadelphia. He was not, as 
 has been generally supposed, the first Presbyterian 
 preacher who settled in the city. The Rev. John 
 Woodbridge came here from New England the 
 same year, in advance of Andrews, but for some 
 reason did not remain. Mr. Andrews settled, and 
 in 1701 was ordained, and the First Church was 
 organized with him as pastor. 
 
 Under the General Presbytery. 
 
 Five years thereafter, in 1706, the first or Gen- 
 eral Presbytery was formed. In the fragment of 
 the records which has been preserved are the 
 names of three ministers, and another was or- 
 
16 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 dained during its sessions ; but that list, combined 
 with the one in the minutes of 1707, shows that 
 seven ministers were in the organization and com- 
 posed the full ministerial strength of the denomi- 
 nation when the General Presbytery first appears 
 upon the page of history. In the light of the fail- 
 ure that afterward prevailed, it is pleasant to note 
 that in that meeting of 1707 the number of min- 
 isters and the number of ruling elders in attend- 
 ance were equal — four of each. 
 
 In that Presbyterial organization one minister 
 and one church were all that were located in 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 In 1710 the nucleus of a second congregation, 
 in the Great or Chester Valley, now the Great 
 Valley Church, appears upon the records; and 
 the Rev. Apollos Van Vleck joined the Presbytery 
 with the Low Dutch congregation of Neshaminy, 
 Bucks county. The same year a letter to the 
 Presbytery of Dublin speaks of five congregations 
 in Pennsylvania, and another letter to the Synod 
 of Glasgow says there were ten ministers in all in 
 the Presbytery, five of them in Pennsylvania. 
 Pennsylvania, however, then included what is 
 now the State of Delaware, in the territorv of 
 which were the Red Clay Creek, Lower Brandy- 
 wine, White Clay Creek, and Head of Christiana 
 churches, and the Welsh Tract. What is now 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 17 
 
 Pennsylvania had Mr. Andrews and Mr. Van 
 Vleck, with the First Philadelphia, the Great 
 Valley, to which the unlicensed David Evans 
 had been preaching, and Neshaminy churches. 
 
 In 1714 the church at Abington, which had 
 been organized as a Congregational church, was 
 added to the number, with the Rev. Malachi Jones 
 as its pastor. 
 
 Under the Synod. 
 
 In 1716 the number of ministers in the Presby- 
 tery was seventeen, and, " it having pleased Divine 
 Providence so to increase our number," it was after 
 much deliberation judged to be more serviceable 
 to the interest of religion to divide into subordi- 
 nate meetings or Presbyteries, constituting one 
 annually as a Synod. 
 
 The subordinate Philadelphia Presbytery, which 
 was one of the three thus constituted, and which 
 first met in 1717, consisted of six ministers, of 
 whom only two (Messrs. Andrews and Jones) were 
 in Pennsylvania. The churches in the State were 
 the First Philadelphia, Great Valley, Abington, 
 and Neshaminy. 
 
 This Presbytery, it should be observed, was not 
 limited to Pennsylvania : it covered also New Jer- 
 sey, and one of its members was in Maryland. 
 Of its associated Presbyteries, New Castle was in 
 
 2 
 
18 AMERICAN PRESS YTERIANISM. 
 
 the State of Delaware, and Snow Hill, which was, 
 however, never organized, in Maryland. (A Pres- 
 bytery of Long Island was formed of two minis- 
 ters who were laboring on Long Island, with neigh- 
 boring brethren.) 
 
 Thus far, the churches and ministers in the 
 colony closely hugged the river Delaware. But 
 in 1732 the Presbytery of " Dunagall " was erected 
 in Lancaster county, with five ministers, a num- 
 ber which by 1739 had increased to eleven. 
 
 In the last-named year the Presbytery of New 
 Castle had extended itself up into Pennsylvania, 
 having upon its list Francis Allison, in the New 
 London Church, and Robert Cathcart, supplying 
 Middletown in Delaware county, in connection 
 with Brandywine, Kent, and Lewes in the State of 
 Delaware : two ministers, therefore, in this State. 
 
 Philadelphia Presbytery had then live minis- 
 ters in the State — Andrews; Robert Cross, who 
 had been called in 1734 as assistant to Mr. An- 
 drews ; William Tennant, who in 1721 took charge 
 of Bensalem and Smithfield in Bucks county, and 
 was called to Neshaminy in 1726 ; David Evans, 
 who in the Chester Valley supplied also Sadsbury, 
 West Branch of Brandywine, and Conestoga; and 
 Richard Treat, at Abington. 
 
 The three Presbyteries had thus, toward the 
 middle of the last century and after a third of a 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT, 19 
 
 century's Presbyterial existence, only eighteen 
 ministers in Pennsylvania. 
 
 During the Schism. 
 
 The Old and New Side controversy had then 
 begun to distract the Church. The Old Side made 
 orthodoxy their shibboleth ; insisted more on in- 
 tellectual qualifications and high education in the 
 ministry ; were stricter in Presbyterial order : the 
 New Side placed more stress on experimental re- 
 ligion, vital piety in the ministry, and were more 
 tolerant of departures from ecclesiastical strictness. 
 At the root both were right ; in practical conduct 
 and mutual intercourse both were wrong. The 
 Church has long accepted the essential points for 
 which each contended. But the dissensions di- 
 vided the denomination for a time ; and on the 
 division, in 1745, Philadelphia, Donegal, and a 
 part of New Castle Presbytery remained in the 
 Synod of Philadelphia, the Old Side organization. 
 
 The division was an unhappy one for the 
 Church. Growth was slow during it. It scarcely 
 occurred before healing efforts began, and in 1758 
 reunion was effected. 
 
 Reunited. 
 
 Some of the questions which led to the Old and 
 New Side division, however, unhappily remained. 
 
20 AMERICAN PRESS YTERIANISM. 
 
 In 1762, " in compliance with a request from some 
 members of Philadelphia Presbytery, the Synod 
 appointed that the members of that Presbytery be 
 erected into two Presbyteries for one year at least, 
 and that the new Presbytery be called by the 
 name of the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia ; 
 and that Messrs. Robert Cross, Francis Allison, 
 John Ewing, John Simonton, and James Latta be 
 members thereof." This was an elective-affinity 
 movement. Strange to us now, the Second Phila- 
 delphia men denied the right of Presbyteries " to 
 inquire into candidates' experimental acquaint- 
 ance with religion as a scriptural and rational 
 means of obtaining satisfaction as to their quali- 
 fication for preaching the gospel." The Synod 
 held the other view, but organized those brethren 
 into a Presbytery for the relief of their con- 
 sciences. The act produced dissatisfaction. In 
 1766 the Synod refused to reunite the two Pres- 
 byteries — a refusal which was strongly protested 
 against as of schismatical tendency. 
 
 In 1765, on a petition from the Presbytery, 
 against which, however, an appeal also came from 
 some of its members, the members of the Pres- 
 bytery of Donegal who lived on the western side 
 of the river Susquehanna were erected into the 
 Presbytery of Carlisle, the first meeting of which 
 was appointed to be held in Philadelphia on the 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 21 
 
 23d of May (the day of the action), and the re- 
 maining members were annexed to the Presbytery 
 of New Castle, the name of which was changed 
 to Lancaster, and which was directed to meet on 
 the 25th of May, at six o'clock in the morning, at 
 the First Church in Philadelphia. Seven of the 
 members of the Donegal Presbytery protested 
 against this, complaining that "their right as 
 members was infringed in erecting a new Pres- 
 bytery out of Donegal Presbytery, and annexing 
 the remaining members to another Presbytery, 
 without consulting said Presbytery or allowing 
 them to vote in that affair." This, too, was an 
 effect of the old divisive leaven. 
 
 In 1767 the Donegal Presbytery was restored, 
 but a number of its members refused to yield and 
 formed a separate Presbytery. The controversy 
 continued for years. 
 
 In 1769 the Synod cast its missionary eye be- 
 yond the Alleghenies and directed the Donegal 
 Presbytery " to supply the western frontier of this 
 province ten Sabbaths." The Scotch-Irish Pres- 
 byterian immigration, which has been such a con- 
 trolling element in State and Church, had been 
 rolling over our broad acres. In 1771 the Synod 
 granted the Presbytery for its missionary purposes 
 fifteen pounds, requiring it "to husband the 
 money and improve it to the best advantage." 
 
22 AMERICAN rRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Ten years later, in 1781, the Presbytery of Red- 
 stone, the mother Presbytery of the West, was 
 formed, consisting of Joseph Smith of New Castle, 
 John McMillan of Donegal, James Powers, and 
 Thaddeus Dodd. The first meeting was appointed 
 to be held at Laurel Hill Church the third Wednes- 
 day of September, though an incursion of savages 
 prevented the meeting there and caused it to be 
 held at Pigeon Creek. That was the beginning 
 of Western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism. Red- 
 stone, still on the list, became the mother of a 
 noble set of Presbyteries. When organized, said 
 Prof. Wilson, '' it occupied the picket-line of Pres- 
 byterianism on this continent ; a vanguard thrown 
 across the Alleghenies to secure outposts and to 
 lead the advancing columns of the sacramental 
 host, through hardships and perils, to take posses- 
 sion in the name of the Lord." It started as a 
 purely missionary Presbytery, unbounded, too, in 
 its formation limits. 
 
 At that time, a little over a century ago, after 
 an organic existence of eighty years, there were in 
 the bounds of Pennsylvania only five, or rather 
 parts of five, Presbyteries— Philadelphia, Philadel- 
 phia Second, New Castle, Donegal, Redstone. And 
 yet the size of the denomination and its prospec- 
 tive growth, and the difficulty of attendance on 
 the meetings of the Synod, had then started the 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 23 
 
 movement which resulted in the transformation 
 of that Synod into the General Assembly. 
 
 The following resolution, passed in 1781, is sig- 
 nificant: "Whereas, the Synod is deeply affected 
 that the judicatories of the Church are so exceed- 
 ingly neglected, both by ministers and elders, 
 especially the latter, and taking this matter into 
 serious consideration, and apprehending that one 
 reason of this non-attendance, particularly on the 
 sessions of Synod, arises from congregations mak- 
 ing no provision for defraying the expenses of 
 ministers and elders, do therefore request the 
 Presbyteries to direct their members to recom- 
 mend it to their respective congregations to make 
 contributions for this purpose ; and the Synod do 
 further request that the Presbyteries take every 
 proper measure to excite their members to attend 
 upon this judicatory." There were only twenty 
 ministers and four elders present that year. 
 
 Synodical Transformation. 
 
 In 1785 " an overture was brought in that for 
 the better management of the churches under our 
 care this Synod be divided into three Synods, and 
 that a General Synod or Assembly be constituted 
 out of the whole." 
 
 In 1786, as a part of the scheme for this, Done- 
 gal Presbytery was divided into the Presbyteries of 
 
24 AMERICAN PRESBYTEBIANISM. 
 
 Baltimore and Carlisle, the latter becoming the 
 successor of Donegal, which then ceased to exist, 
 though a Presbytery of the same name was re- 
 vived in this century in the Old School branch 
 of the Church. The two Philadelphia Presbyteries 
 were also united. Then it was proposed to divide 
 the General Synod "into four distinct Synods, 
 subordinated to a General Assembly to be consti- 
 tuted out of the whole," the Synods to be called 
 New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, 
 South Carolina — Philadelphia Synod to consist 
 of the Presbyteries of Philadelphia, Lewestown, 
 New Castle, Baltimore, and Carlisle. None of 
 these Presbyteries composing the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia were limited to the State of Pennsylvania: 
 Philadelphia extended into New Jersey ; New Cas- 
 tle into Delaware ; Carlisle into Maryland ; and 
 Lewestown and Baltimore were entirely out of 
 Pennsylvania. Redstone was set off into the 
 Synod of Virginia, with the Presbyteries of Han- 
 over, Lexington, and Transylvania. 
 
 The part of the new plan which concerned the 
 arrangement of Presbyteries was agreed to in 
 1786 ; the rest was deferred to the next year. 
 
 Concurrent with these changes went on the 
 perfecting and adoption of the Standards of the 
 Church, substantially as we still have them as 
 our Constitution. 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 25 
 
 Under the General Assembly. 
 
 The division into four Synods was consum- 
 mated in 1788. The first meeting of the General 
 Assembly was held on the third Thursday of May, 
 
 1789, in the Second Church, Philadelphia; that 
 of the Synod of Philadelphia on the third Thurs- 
 day of October, 1788, in the First Church, Phila- 
 delphia; and that of the Synod of Virginia, to 
 which Redstone belonged, on the fourth Wednes- 
 day of October, 1788. 
 
 There were present at the first meeting of the 
 Assembly only twenty-one ministers and ten 
 elders, ten of the ministers and eight of the elders 
 being from the Pennsylvania Presbyteries. 
 
 The strength of the denomination in the whole 
 country, as gathered from statistics published in 
 
 1790, was 177 ministers, 11 probationers, 215 con- 
 gregations supplied with ministers, 204 vacant 
 congregations, not counting Transylvania Pres- 
 bytery — in all, 188 preachers and 419 congrega- 
 tions, many of which were hardly more than a 
 name. Of these, the Pennsylvania Presbyteries 
 reported 63 ministers, 2 probationers, and 135 
 congregations, 51 of them vacant. 
 
 The larger part of those Presbyteries were in 
 the State of Pennsylvania — Philadelphia taking 
 in the eastern section, now occupied by Philadel- 
 
26 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 phia, Philadelphia North, Lehigh, Lackawanna ; 
 New Castle extending into what are now Chester 
 and Westminster ; Carlisle embracing the field of 
 the present Carlisle, Northumberland, and Hunt- 
 ingdon; Redstone covering Western Pennsyl- 
 vania. As far as can be made out, 47 of the 63 
 ministers who were in the Synod were in the State 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 In 1792 the river Potomac was declared the 
 boundary-line betw^een the Synods of Philadelphia 
 and Virginia, except that Alexandria, Va., was 
 included in the former. 
 
 The denominational growth in the western part 
 of the State was shown, and Redstone made its 
 first colonization by the formation in 1793 out of 
 that Presbytery of the Presbytery of Ohio. 
 
 The Presbytery of Huntingdon was erected out 
 of Carlisle in 1794, on an overture from the Syn- 
 od of Philadelphia. This set off nine ministers 
 in the new Presbytery and left sixteen in the old. 
 These figures are mentioned because, as contrasted 
 with the size of those Presbyteries now, they show 
 the day of small things, and show, too, that the 
 policy, the healthy policy, of the Church has been 
 to multiply small Presbyteries for efficient work. 
 
 The same year (1794), although the Synod con- 
 tained only 71 ministers and 86 churches, of 
 which 31 were vacant, an attempt was made to 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 27 
 
 divide it. Doubtless the difficulties and expense 
 of travel over such a large field with the facilities 
 then had, in connection with the small attendance, 
 led to the attempt. For in 1796 the body failed to 
 meet at Yorktown, to which it had been adjourned, 
 only one minister being present from Philadelphia 
 Presbytery, one minister and one elder from New 
 Castle, two ministers and an elder from Baltimore, 
 and thirteen ministers and three elders from Car- 
 lisle, in whose bounds was the meeting-place. For 
 the same reason the Assembly was then asked, 
 though not successfully, to meet only triennially. 
 
 In 1802 the churches north and north-west of 
 the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, west of the Penn- 
 sylvania line, which were reported as belonging 
 to the Presbyteries of Redstone and Ohio, were 
 erected into the Presbytery of Erie. This shows 
 that a part of Redstone was then in Ohio, and 
 that the Presbytery of Erie was an Ohio organiza- 
 tion, the Ohio Presbytery being largely in Penn- 
 sylvania — an instance of confusion of geographical 
 names that widely prevailed until the reunion a 
 quarter of a century ago. 
 
 The Synod of Pittsburg was formed in the same 
 year by the division of the Synod of Virginia, and 
 it was constituted of the Presbyteries of Redstone, 
 Ohio, and Erie. It held its first meeting in Pitts- 
 burg the last Wednesday of September. The first 
 
28 AMERICAN PRESS YTERIANISM. 
 
 report of that Synod, which was largely in this 
 State, made in 1803, showed 36 ministers and 47 
 vacant churches, in addition to those served by 
 ministers. The same year the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia had 80 ministers and 54 vacant congrega- 
 tions, in addition to the pastoral charges. 
 
 In 1810 we have for the first time a report of 
 the number of communicants in the Presbyteries. 
 The Pennsylvania Presbyteries had then 8368, a 
 part of whom were outside the State. The popula- 
 tion of the State was then 810,091. 
 
 The Presbytery of Northumberland was formed 
 out of Huntingdon in 1811 with 5 ministers, 10 
 churches, and 947 communicants, leaving Hunt- 
 ingdon with 9 ministers, 25 churches, and 928 
 communicants. 
 
 Washington Presbytery was formed in 1819 out 
 of Ohio Presbytery with 10 ministers, 18 churches, 
 and 1553 communicants, leaving Ohio with 11 min- 
 isters, 10 churches, and 1308 communicants. 
 
 The Presbytery of Allegheny was formed in 
 1820, and in 1823 it had 8 ministers, 21 churches, 
 and 717 communicants. It of course belonged to 
 Pittsburg Synod. 
 
 During the Division. 
 A second Second Philadelphia Presbytery was 
 formed in 1832. This was an elective-affinity 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 29 
 
 Presbytery, and its formation was one of the acts 
 in the movement which led to the Old and New 
 School division. 
 
 It does not fall within the scope of this sketch 
 to reopen that, or to follow the Presbyterial and 
 Synodical changes which marked the two branches 
 during the division. It is sufficient to say that in 
 1834, on the threshold of the division, Pennsyl- 
 vania embraced parts of the Synods of New Jersey, 
 Philadelphia, Delaware, and Pittsburg, and of the 
 Presbyteries of Newton, Susquehanna, Montrose, 
 Philadelphia, Philadelphia Second (Synodical), 
 New Castle, Carlisle, Huntingdon, Northumber- 
 land, Philadelphia Second, Allegheny, Beaver, 
 Redstone, Washington, Blairsville, and Ohio; 
 and those Presbyteries contained 238 ministers, 
 853 churches, and 42,477 communicants, the larger 
 portion, though by no means the whole, of which 
 were in the State of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Since the Reunion. 
 
 On our happy reunion in 1870 there were in 
 whole or in part in the State of Pennsylvania the 
 0. S. Synods of Allegheny, Baltimore, New Jersey, 
 Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Wheeling, and the N. S. 
 Synods of New York and New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and West Pennsylvania. 
 
 The Synod of Allegheny contained the Presby- 
 
30 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM, 
 
 teries of Allegheny, Allegheny City, Beaver, Erie, 
 and Pittsburg." 
 
 The Synod of Baltimore, with two other Pres- 
 byteries outside of the State, had Carlisle, which 
 was almost altogether in the State. 
 
 The Presbytery of Montrose, wholly in this 
 State, was in the Synod of New York and New 
 Jersey. 
 
 The Presbyteries of Luzerne, altogether in this 
 State, and Newton, with three churches in the 
 State, were in the Synod of New Jersey. 
 
 The Synod of Pennsylvania had the Presby- 
 teries of Harrisburg, Philadelphia Third, Phila- 
 delphia Fourth (with a few churches in New 
 Jersey). 
 
 The Synod of Philadelphia had the Presbyteries 
 of Donegal, Huntingdon, New Castle (with a few 
 churches in Delaware), Northumberland, Phila- 
 delphia (with one church in New Jersey), Phila- 
 delphia Central, Philadelphia Second. 
 
 The Synod of Pittsburg had the Presbyteries 
 of Blairsville, Clarion, Ohio, Redstone, Saltsburg. 
 
 The Synod of West Pennsylvania had the Pres- 
 byteries of Erie, Meadville, and Pittsburg. 
 
 The Synod of Wheeling had the Presbyteries 
 of Washington, partly in Pennsylvania, partly in 
 West Virginia, and the Presbytery of West Vir- 
 ginia, wholly in the lately-erected State. 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 31 
 
 Reconstruction. 
 
 By the reunion Assembly of 1870 these Old 
 and New School Synods and Presbyteries were 
 reconstructed into four Synods, as follows : Phila- 
 delphia, embracing the Presbyteries and parts of 
 Presbyteries in Eastern Pennsylvania, with the 
 missionary Presbytery of Western Africa ; Harris- 
 burg, the central counties of Pennsylvania ; Erie, 
 the north-western counties of Pennsylvania ; Pitts- 
 burg, South-western Pennsylvania, with West Vir- 
 ginia west of the Allegheny Ridge. 
 
 These Synods met — Philadelphia, on June 21st, 
 1870, in the Spring Garden Church, Philadelphia ; 
 Harrisburg, June 28th, 1870, in the First Church of 
 Bellefonte; Erie, July 7th, 1870, in the Park Church, 
 Erie ; Pittsburg, June 23d, 1870, in the First Church 
 of Pittsburg — and reconstructed the Presbyte- 
 ries and parts of Presbyteries which lay within 
 their bounds. The Synod of Philadelphia, also at 
 once wiped out the old dividing lines, reconstructed 
 the Presbyteries of the two "Schools," and con- 
 stituted the Presbyteries of Chester, Lackawanna, 
 Lehigh, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Central, Phila- 
 delphia North, Westminister, and Western Africa ; 
 Harrisburg, the Presbyteries of Carlisle, Hunting- 
 don, Northumberland, and Wellsboro; Erie, the 
 Presbyteries of Allegheny, Butler, Clarion, Erie, 
 
32 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Kittanning, Shenango ; Pittsburg^ the Presbyteries 
 of Blairsville, Pittsburg, Redstone, Washington, 
 and West Virginia. 
 
 The first report made by these reconstructed 
 State Synods in 1871 exhibited the following 
 figures : 
 
 Minis- Commu- S.-S. mem- 
 
 ters. Churches, ^icants. bers, 
 
 Erie 146 209 25,102 18,877 
 
 Harrisburg .... 133 159 17,238 15,493 
 
 Philadelphia ... 300 261 40,210 49,360 
 
 Pittsburg 138 164 21,852 19,238 
 
 717 793 104,402 103,048; 
 
 of which there were in West Virginia 21 ministers, 
 44 churches, 4144 communicants, and 3485 Sab- 
 bath-school members; and in Western Africa 6 
 ministers, 6 churches, 246 communicants, and 198 
 Sabbath-school members — leaving in the State of 
 Pennsylvania 690 ministers, 743 churches, 100,012 
 communicants, and 99,305 Sabbath-school mem- 
 bers. 
 
 Enlargement and Consolidation. 
 
 In 1881 (the act going into effect on January 
 1st, 1882), as a part of a national act by which the 
 General Assembly reduced the number of the 
 Synods and enlarged their size and powers, mak- 
 ing them Provincial Assemblies, coterminous as 
 far as possible with State lines, the four Synods 
 
ITS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. 33 
 
 were consolidated into the Synod of Pennsylvania, 
 the statistics for which then were 870 ministers, 
 929 churches, 132,251 communicants, and 148,176 
 Sabbath-school members. 
 
 The last reports of the four Synods, before their 
 consolidation, gave the following figures: 
 
 Minis- Commu- S.-S. mem- 
 
 ters. Churches. Scants. bers. 
 
 Erie 181 252 30,860 29,622 
 
 Harrisburg .... 154 176 21,910 22,120 
 
 Philadelphia ... 372 301 52,050 67,495 
 
 Pittsburg 168 193 26,414 25,666 
 
 The first meeting of the large Provincial Synod 
 was held in Harrisburg on the third Thursday 
 of Oct., 1882. It then adopted and submitted to 
 its Presbyteries a plan of delegation, which was 
 reported at the next meeting in Pittsburg as ap- 
 proved by a majority of the Presbyteries, and 
 under that plan the Synod met in 1884 as a dele- 
 gated Synod. Its undelegated membership would 
 have been 4604. The delegation made the mem- 
 bership about 225 — a minister and elder for every 
 sixteen ministers and congregations combined. 
 
 3 
 
II. 
 
 ITS NUMERICAL GROWTH. 
 
 Such is a brief, skeleton sketch of the organic 
 Presbyterial and Synodical history of our Presby- 
 terian Church in Pennsylvania. 
 
 Now let the remarkable progress of Presbyte- 
 rianism in its bounds be noted. 
 
 Weakness for a Century. 
 
 The Church began here and struggled along 
 for nearly the first century of its existence under 
 great difficulties. As has been said, the Society of 
 Friends and the Episcopal and Baptist churches 
 had at the outset the vantage-ground. 
 
 In 1702 a missionary of the English " Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts " wrote : " The Presbyterians here come a 
 great way to lay hands on one another ; but, after 
 all, I think they had as good stay at home, for all 
 the good they do. In Philadelphia one pretends 
 to be a Presb^^terian, and has a congregation to 
 which he preaches." And in the following year 
 another missionary of the same society journalized 
 in this city a fact and a prediction : " They have 
 
 34 
 
THE NUMERICAL GROWTH. 85 
 
 here a Presbyterian meeting-house and minister, 
 one called Andrews; but they are not like to in- 
 crease here" 
 
 The Presbytery itself, in appealing to a friend 
 in London for pecuniary help in 1709, said : " If 
 the sum of about two hundred pounds per annum 
 were raised for the encouragement of ministers in 
 these parts, it would enable ministers and people 
 to erect eight congregations, and ourselves put in 
 better circumstances than hitherto we have been. 
 "We are at present seven ministers, most of whose 
 outward affairs are so straitened as to crave relief, 
 unto which if two or three more were added it 
 would greatly strengthen our influence, which 
 does miserably suffer as things at present are 
 among us. . . . It is well known what advantages 
 the missionaries from England have of us, from 
 the settled fund of their Church, which not only 
 liberally supports them here, but encourages so 
 many insolences, both against our persons and in- 
 terests, which sorrowfully looking on we cannot 
 but lament and crave your remedy. . . . We most 
 earnestly beseech you, in the bowels of our Lord, 
 to intercede with the ministers of London and 
 other well-affected gentlemen to extend their 
 charity and pity to us, to carry on so necessary 
 and glorious a work." 
 
 In a similar vein, and even more distressingly, 
 
36 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the same Presbytery wrote the next year to the 
 Presbytery of Dublin and to the Synod of 
 Glasgow. 
 
 Fourscore years later, in 1784, Arthur Lee, a 
 " high-toned Virginian," wrote of Pittsburg " that 
 it was inhabited almost entirely by the Scots and 
 the Irish, who live in paltry log-houses and are as 
 dirty as in the North of Ireland or even Scotland. 
 There is a great deal of small trade carried on. 
 There are in the town four attorneys and two 
 doctors, and not a priest of any persuasion, nor 
 church, nor chapel, so that they are likely to be 
 damned without the benefit of clergy." And a godly 
 Presbyterian who moved thither from Carlisle in 
 1783 wrote : " When I first came here I found the 
 place filled with old officers and soldiers, followers 
 of the army, mixed with a few families of credit. 
 All sorts of wickedness were carried on to excess, 
 and there was no appearance of morality or regu- 
 lar order. As I have already remarked, when I 
 first came to this town there appeared to be no 
 signs of religion among the people, and it seemed 
 to me that the Presbyterian ministers were afraid 
 to come to the place lest they should be mocked 
 or mistreated." 
 
 But just then (in 1784), on application, Redstone 
 Presbytery began to send supplies to the Iron City, 
 and the First Church came into existence. 
 
THE NUMERICAL GROWTH. 37 
 
 Present Strength. 
 
 And now, behold, what God hath wrought! 
 That despised minister and congregation in the 
 city of Penn, sweeping across the Alleghenies and 
 taking in the " dirty " (as the dainty Arthur Lee 
 described them) Scotch and Irish of Pittsburg, 
 have grown into the Synod of Pennsylvania, which 
 represents 1214 preachers of the gospel (1071 min- 
 isters, 93 licentiates, and 50 local evangelists), 239 
 candidates for the ministry, 1184 churches with 
 4582 ruling elders, 197,491 communicants, and 
 207,228 Sabbath-school members. During last 
 year there were added to their communicant rolls 
 on profession of faith 13,327 new members. And 
 they raised $3,050,116, of which $2,195,351 were for 
 the various organic purposes of congregations, 
 $217,303 for miscellaneous charitable causes, 
 $358,172 for the various Home Missionary Boards 
 of the denomination, and $178,584 for Foreign 
 Missions. 
 
 It should be stated that in the Synod are in- 
 cluded the Presbytery of Parkersburg, which 
 covers the State of West Virginia, and also the 
 missionary Presbyteries of the City of Mexico, 
 Zacatecas, and Western Africa. In these Presby- 
 teries outside of the State of Pennsylvania are 116 
 preachers (74 ordained ministers, 21 licentiates, 
 
38 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 21 local evangelists), 124 churches, 6524 communi- 
 cants, and 5412 Sabbath-school members ; leaving 
 in Pennsylvania, 1095 preachers (997 ordained 
 ministers, 73 licentiates, 21 local evangelists), 1060 
 churches, 190,967 communicants, and 201,816 
 Sabbath-school members. That was the numeri- 
 cal strength last year (1895) of the one commonly 
 called the Northern branch of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the Keystone State. It is not, how- 
 ever, the whole Presbyterian strength of the State, 
 and the other branches are gladly included in the 
 statement of that, and reveal the following facts: 
 
 Strongest Church in the State. 
 
 Of all the religious denominations, the Presby- 
 terian, including its various branches, has become 
 in Pennsylvania the strongest in numbers, pe- 
 cuniary resources, and active church work. 
 
 The Federal Census reports for 1890 (the latest 
 made and just published) are here significant. 
 The whole population of the State was 5,258,014. 
 The number of communicants in all denomina- 
 tions was reported as 1,726,640. Of that number, 
 551,577 were claimed as Roman Catholics. It 
 should be remembered, however, that that em- 
 braces the whole claimed Papal population over 
 nine years of age, and is not made up from pre- 
 cise lists, and hence cannot fairly be compared 
 
THE NUMERICAL GROWTH. 39 
 
 with the reports from other churches of their 
 communicants, which are transcripts from exact 
 rolls of persons who have made a personal and 
 public profession of their faith and been admitted 
 to the Lord's Table. It is safe to say that for such 
 comparison the Roman Catholic figures should be 
 reduced more than one-half. No man who is fa- 
 miliar with the population believes that one-third 
 of the professedly religious people of the State 
 and of the country are Roman Catholics, as the 
 returns of the priests to the census ofiicers claim 
 —551,577 out of 1,726,640 in Pennsylvania, and 
 6,257,871 out of 20,612,806 in the whole country. 
 
 All the Protestant Churches. 
 
 But, leaving out those figures for Pennsylvania, 
 the communicants as reported for all other de- 
 nominations in 1890 were 1,175,063. The five 
 strongest embraced in that total are — Protestant 
 Episcopal, 54,720; Baptist, 86,620; Lutheran, 
 219,725; Methodist, of all branches, 260,388; 
 Presbyterian and Reformed, of all branches, 
 340,948. Thus the Presbyterian and Reformed 
 strength is almost one-third of the Protestant 
 force of the State. 
 
 The Presbyterian Family. 
 This Presbyterian and Reformed total is di- 
 vided as follows among the different branches: 
 
40 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States 
 of America, 161,386 ; 
 
 The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 6210 ; 
 
 The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, 2461 ; 
 
 The United Presbyterian Church, 39,204 ; 
 
 The Associate Church of North America, 420 ; 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States (Synod), 3272 ; 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian Church in North 
 America (General Synod), 2685 ; 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanted) 10 ; 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian in U. S., and Can- 
 ada, 600 ; 
 
 The Reformed Church in America (Dutch), 
 1756; 
 
 The Reformed Church in the United States 
 (German), 122,944. 
 
 The Methodist Family. 
 
 The Methodist family of churches is in strength 
 the next to the Presbyterian. It will be interesting 
 here to exhibit the different branches of them also, 
 which in the aggregate number 260,388 : 
 
 Methodist Episcopal, 222,886 communicants ; 
 
 Union American Methodist Protestant. 765 ; 
 
 African Methodist Episcopal (colored), 11,613 ; 
 
 African Union Methodist Episcoj)al (colored), 
 852; 
 
THE NUMERICAL GROWTH. 41 
 
 African Methodist Episcopal Zion (colored), 
 8689; 
 
 Methodist Protestant, 10,081 ; 
 
 Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America, 
 1195; 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 635; 
 
 Colored Methodist Episcopal, 247 ; 
 
 Primitive Methodist, 2267 ; 
 
 Free Methodist, 1158. 
 
 These two great families of churches (the Method- 
 ist and Presbyterian) have thus more than one- 
 half of the religious strength of the State. The 
 fact is of special interest, because the two grow 
 closely together and have a modifying influence 
 upon each other. 
 
 Proportionate Growth. 
 
 The absolute Presbyterian growth has thus been 
 very great. But, more than that, it has been pro- 
 portionally greater than that of the general popu- 
 lation. Note a few comparative statements which 
 show how strikingly this has been the case. 
 
 In the beginning of the last century Presby- 
 terianism had one minister and one church in the 
 whole region covered by the Synod. The city of 
 Philadelphia had then a population of 5000. 
 
 In 1790 it had 47 ministers in the State, the 
 
42 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 population of which was 434,373, or one minister 
 to 9240 inhabitants. 
 
 In 1810 it had 114 ministers, 206 churches, and 
 8368 communicants in all the Presbyteries that 
 were in whole or in part in the State, whose popu- 
 lation was then 810,091. These Presbyteries ex- 
 tended beyond the State. I cannot tell how many 
 of their members were in the present bounds of 
 the Synod ; the public reports do not yet discrim- 
 inate: it is safe to say there were less than 100 
 ministers, less than 200 churches, and less than 
 8000 communicants; on the highest calculation 
 there were less than one minister to 8000 people, 
 and not one communicant to a hundred of the 
 population. 
 
 In 1884, the year the Synod first met in its 
 delegated form, it had 842 ministers, 941 churches, 
 and 135,075 communicants in a population of (in 
 1880) 4,901,348: a minister to 5821, a church to 
 4212, a communicant to 37 inhabitants. 
 
 Now it has 997 ministers, 1060 churches, 
 190,967 communicants in a population (in 1890) 
 of 5,258,014: one minister to 5200, a church to 
 4900, and a communicant to 29 inhabitants. 
 
 Note, again, the communicants in Pennsyl- 
 vania now (190,967), in a general population of 
 less than six millions, are more than they were 
 in the whole United States in 1830 (173,329), 
 
THE NUMERICAL GROWTH. 43 
 
 when the population was nearly thirteen millions 
 (12,866,020). 
 
 In 1820, when the population of the whole 
 country was 9,633,820, and that of Pennsylvania 
 1,047,507, the Presbyterian membership in the 
 country was 72,096. Of that membership, 15,938 
 were in the Presbyteries which covered Pennsyl- 
 vania. Those Presbyteries, however, extended 
 beyond the State, and not more than 14,000 of 
 their membership were in its bounds. In the 
 State population now, five times as great as it was 
 in 1820, the membership is fourteen times as great. 
 
 The population of Pennsylvania in 1820 was 
 almost the same as that of Philadelphia now ; the 
 communicants in Pennsylvania then, including 
 Philadelphia, were about 14,000 ; in Philadelphia 
 alone they are now 38,500. 
 
 The city alone now has nearly three times as 
 many communicants as the State had when its 
 population, including that of the city, was about 
 the same ; and the State had in its population of 
 a million in 1820 more Presbyterians than were 
 in the country when its population was four 
 millions. 
 
 And yet, again, the communicants in Philadel- 
 phia number now 38,500. The number in the 
 whole United States in 1815 was only 39,685. The 
 population of the United States was then 8,500,000, 
 
44 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 while in the city it is about 1,200,000. The city, 
 with a population of over a million, has as many 
 Presbyterian communicants as the whole country 
 had when its population was over eight millions. 
 This suggests a closer and more minute look at 
 Philadelphia, which is a microcosm of the State in 
 its religious history and features. 
 
III. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 The first settlers here under Penn, as has been 
 stated, were almost exclusively Friends, with a 
 sprinkling of Episcopalians, but no Presbyterians. 
 The following tabulated statement, from the Na- 
 tional Census returns of 1890, shows the numeri- 
 cal position which all denominations now occupy : 
 
 All Denominations. 
 
 Adventists (five bodies) 
 
 Regular Baptists 
 
 Roman Catholics 
 
 Other Catholics (two bodies) . . . 
 
 Con^egationalists 
 
 Disciples of Christ 
 
 Dunkards (two bodies) 
 
 Evangelical Association 
 
 Friends (three bodies) ...... 
 
 Jewish (two bodies) 
 
 Latter-Day Saints (two bodies) . . 
 
 Lutheran (eleven bodies) 
 
 Methodist Episcopal 
 
 Colored Methodists (six bodies) . 
 Other Methodists (three bodies) . 
 
 Presbyterian (Northern) 
 
 other Presbyterians (five bodies) . 
 
 Reformed (three bodies) 
 
 Protestant Episcopal 
 
 United Brethren 
 
 Unitarian 
 
 Universalists 
 
 Various bodies 
 
 Total 610 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ai 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 •a 
 
 53 
 
 
 03 
 
 a 
 
 tS 
 
 bO 
 
 
 M 
 
 o 
 
 Td 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 2 
 
 164 
 
 1 
 
 74 
 
 25,193 
 
 95 
 
 57 
 
 163,658 
 
 61 
 
 1 
 
 150 
 
 
 3 
 
 890 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 472 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 249 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 1,256 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 5,014 
 
 15 
 
 9 
 
 216 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 47 
 
 
 41 
 
 11,653 
 
 40 
 
 108 
 
 32,925 
 
 107 
 
 21 
 
 5,100 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 181 
 
 2 
 
 91 
 
 35,185 
 
 115 
 
 21 
 
 6,014 
 
 21 
 
 21 
 
 7,566 
 
 21 
 
 87 
 
 28,319 
 
 102 
 
 2 
 
 170 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 675 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 514 
 
 2 
 
 37 
 
 5,578 
 
 32 
 
 664 j 
 
 610 
 
 335,189 
 
 S3,000 
 2,962,384 
 2,468,300 
 
 100,110 
 85,000 
 28,000 
 
 130,500 
 1,495,000 
 
 475,000 
 
 1,584,400 
 
 3,288,200 
 
 244,900 
 
 14,000 
 
 5,805,500 
 699,000 
 860,006 
 
 5,019,170 
 
 8,000 
 
 250,000 
 
 245,500 
 
 1,347,400 
 
 45 
 
46 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 The Roman Catholic figures are to be im- 
 mensely discounted in the light of what has been 
 already said. 
 
 Presbyterian the Strongest Now. 
 
 From this it will be seen that the one (Northern, 
 so called) branch of the Presbyterian Church is 
 greatly in advance of any other single denomina- 
 tional organization (communicants 35,185), the 
 the next being — Methodists, 32,925; Protestant 
 Episcopal, 28,319; Baptist, 25,193; Lutheran 
 11,653 ; and that the Presbyterian and Reformed 
 family of churches are still further in advance of 
 the Methodist family, which stands next, the Pres- 
 byterian and Reformed of all the branches having 
 48,765, and the Methodists of all branches, 38,206. 
 The latest ecclesiastical reports which are had, for 
 1895, make the Presbyterian and Reformed fig- 
 ures 229 ministers, 151 churches, 51,426 com- 
 municants, and 158,342 Sabbath-school members. 
 
 And yet at the outset the movement for Presby- 
 terianism here was ridiculed. In 1702, as has been 
 noted, a missionary of the English Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts wrote 
 home : " The Presbyterians here come a great way 
 to lay hands on one another ; but, after all, I think 
 they had as good stay at home for all the good 
 
PHILADELPHIA. 47 
 
 they do ;" and the following year another wrote : 
 " They are not like to increase here." 
 
 Eighteenth-century Weakness. 
 
 Nor was their increase for a hundred years of 
 an encouraging extent. During the eighteenth 
 century they continued to be weak and to strug- 
 gle for existence. The First Church was formed 
 about 1697; forty-six years passed before the 
 Second was formed, and it was organized in 1743, 
 not because it was needed, but as one of the re- 
 sults of the unhappy division that took place in 
 the denomination. The Third followed in 1768. 
 (Four other congregations which have since come 
 into this branch were organized during the cen- 
 tury.) But at the close of the century the churches 
 were gasping for breath. The population of the 
 city more than doubled between 1776 and 1806. It 
 increased in those thirty years from 40,000 to about 
 90,000. But it is doubtful whether the Presbyte- 
 rian communion rolls were as large in the latter 
 year as in the former. The three congregations 
 entered this century less than 500 strong in a 
 population of 69,408. 
 
 This Century's Growth — Churches. 
 
 But the progress during this century has been 
 unequalled. Summarizing the new churches, we 
 
48 AMERICAN PBESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 find that 2 were organized between 1800 and 1810; 
 7 between 1810 and 1820 ; 4 between 1820 and 
 1830; 11 between 1830 and 1840; 10 between 
 1840 and 1850 ; 22 between 1850 and 1860 ; 14 
 between 1860 and 1870 ; 33 since 1870— over one 
 church a year. 
 
 Communicants. 
 
 The first year in which all the churches in the 
 city reported the number of their communicants 
 to the Presbytery was 1806. The total was 722. 
 Last year it was 38,500. Observe the great increase 
 which this is in proportion to the number of in- 
 habitants in the city. The population in 1806, 
 according to a Directory for that year, was between 
 90,000 and 100,000. By the last census it was 
 1,046,094. In the former year the Church had, 
 therefore, not more than one communicant in every 
 124 of the population ; it has now one in 29 or 30. 
 Or, to put the matter in another form, the census 
 of the city is fourteen times as large now as it was 
 then ; the communion rolls are fifty-six times as 
 large. 
 
 The w^ay in which the Presbyterian Church first 
 overtook, and since has continued to outstrip, its 
 sister denominations is remarkable. In 1807 the 
 Baptists reported 488 communicants ; the Presby- 
 terians, 746 ; the Methodists, 2170. Of the Episco- 
 
PHILADELPHIA. 49 
 
 palians we have not the precise figures, but, while 
 not as large as the Methodists, they were larger 
 than the Presbyterians. By the middle of the 
 century the Presbyterians had advanced to the 
 front, and since that they have been steadily 
 advancing farther ahead, until, as the census re- 
 turns show, their number in 1890 was 35,185, the 
 Methodist, 33,295; the Episcopalian, 28,319; the 
 Baptist, 25,193. 
 
 Increase of Contributions. 
 
 Thus far, the exhibition has been rosy and op- 
 timistic. When, however, we look at the money 
 contributions, they first brighten the view, but 
 near to us a shadow falls upon the picture. 
 Twenty years ago the money reports were as 
 bright as those of communicants, but the last two 
 decades have witnessed a retrogression. 
 
 In 1789 the churches which were then in the 
 city raised £16 19s. for the benevolent causes which 
 were managed by the General Assembly. 
 
 In 1807 the whole Presbytery of Philadelphia 
 (which consisted of 20 churches, 16 of them in 
 the country, with 1500 communicants) reported 
 only $871 for the same purposes. 
 
 In 1825 there were 17 churches with 3946 com- 
 municants, and they were reported as contributing 
 $1048. 
 
50 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 For years after the division into Old and New 
 School one of the branches did not publish in the 
 statistical tables the moneys contributed for be- 
 nevolent objects. This was not done until 1853. 
 In that year the two branches had 46 churches, 
 with 11,096 communicants, who contributed 
 $40,503. 
 
 There were, in 1860, 60 churches with 15,519 
 communicants. Their contributions were $79,377. 
 
 In 1870, the year of the blessed reunion, the 
 members reported were 17,982 and the contribu- 
 tions $190,170. 
 
 In 1872, with 19,365 members, the benevolent 
 contributions amounted $473,300. That was four 
 hundred and fifty times as much as in 1825, 
 although the communicants were only five times 
 as many — almost twelve times as much as in 
 1853, while the communicants were not doubled, 
 — and six times as much as in 1860, with an in- 
 crease in communicants of about one-fourth. It 
 was, moreover, twice as much as was reported by 
 the denomination in the whole land in 1837, 
 when it had over 220,000 members. 
 
 The first year in which both the then separate 
 branches published the moneys raised by their 
 congregations for their own purposes was 1865. 
 The amount of that column in all the churches 
 in the city was $216,036. In 1872 it was $519,478. 
 
PHILADELPHIA. 51 
 
 The other columns in 1865 ran up to $231,100, 
 making, with the congregational expenditures, a 
 total of $447,136. The same total in 1872 was 
 $992,777. The amount, therefore, doubled in 
 seven years. 
 
 A Later Decrease. 
 
 That was a wonderful money exhibit. But the 
 last twenty years have not in this respect kept up 
 the progress. Last year the 38,500 communicants 
 contributed $562,441 for congregational purposes 
 and $223,897 for benevolent purposes, or a total 
 of $786,338, or $206,439 less than the 19,365 in 
 1872 contributed. This is a regretful falling off. 
 It is not to be explained by the depreciation in 
 values nor by the business depression of the last 
 three years, for the decline manifested itself before 
 that depression began ; nor wholly by the special 
 Memorial contribution of 1871-73. 
 
 The comparison with 1870, before the Reunion 
 Memorial offerings began to be made, while not 
 showing an absolute falling off for last year, does 
 reveal a regretful proportionate decrease. 
 
 This fact has been a surprise. What is the 
 explanation ? 
 
 The last twenty years have witnessed a great 
 deal of activity in the special cultivation of the 
 liberality of the Church. Many new agencies have 
 
52 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 been at work. Organizations in our congrega- 
 tions have increased. The new generation of 
 workers have thought they were wiser and more 
 enterprising than their fathers. And yet, as far 
 as this city goes, here is the financial result. After 
 all, the Philadelphia pulpits a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago were manned by pastors who did very 
 effective work in what would now be pronounced 
 slow and old-fashioned ways. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH. 
 
 Adaptation to American Society. 
 
 The very condensed sketch which has been 
 given of the progress of Presbyterianism in Phila- 
 delphia especially establishes this position: The 
 Presbyterian Church, in the truths to which it 
 witnesses in its standards and preaches from its 
 pulpits, in the principles of its ecclesiastical gov- 
 ernment, in its mode of worship and in its 
 methods of administration, is the one of the 
 Christian churches which is pre-eminently adapt- 
 ed to this country. For Philadelphia is one of 
 the best representatives of the settled American 
 society. Some of the other large cities are more 
 conglomerate in their inhabitants, more under 
 the influence of Romanism and infidelity. Phila- 
 delphia has been largely preserved from these 
 evils : it is more of an American city ; it has been 
 more steady and sure in its growth, more con- 
 servative in its character; it is a type of the 
 thoroughly organized and settled American popu- 
 lation. 
 
 53 
 
54 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANTSM. 
 
 Our Baptist and Methodist brethren shoot ahead 
 for a time in the frontier and new settlements and 
 among the less-educated populations. The Ro- 
 man Catholic organization has had its growth 
 through immigration from abroad. A careful 
 study of the religious conditions of the country 
 will establish the position that Presbyterianism 
 has its great growth and strength among the 
 settled populations of the land of the average 
 intelligence and solid culture. It has shown it- 
 self to be pre-eminently a great educator, intel- 
 lectually and religiously. It seizes hold upon the 
 thoughtful and elevates, and, as it elevates, grows 
 itself the stronger. 
 
 A Failure. 
 
 Pennsylvania will certainly be accepted as a 
 fair representative of the settled American society, 
 and the progress which Presbyterianism has made 
 and the position it has reached in it are a proof of the 
 admirable adaptation of its doctrine, government, 
 and worship to the average American mind as 
 well as to the most highly cultured classes. But 
 a failure that has marked the work of the Pres- 
 byterian Church suggests a failure to use one of 
 its forces that should be remedied. 
 
 Its progress was slow in the early period of the 
 State. New settlements were not quickly pre- 
 
THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH. 55 
 
 empted by it. Poor districts were not occupied. 
 After our Methodist bretiiren began to preach 
 here, their progress was for a time like wild-fire. 
 They outstripped all other denominations. In the 
 beginning of this century their strength in Phila- 
 delphia was nearly threefold that of the Presby- 
 terians, though now Presbyterians have overtaken 
 and passed them. The census reports for 1890 
 gave the Methodist communicants of all branches 
 in the city 38,206, the Presbyterian and Reformed 
 49,759. McMaster in his History of the People of 
 the United States (vol. i. p. 56) thus describes the 
 Methodist beginning and progress in New York 
 and the colonies : In New York City, " hard by 
 the Dutch Church, stood a smaller and less pre- 
 tentious chapel, on whose worshipers Episco- 
 palians and dissenters alike looked down with 
 horror not unmingled with contempt. The build- 
 ing had been put up some sixteen years before. 
 Yet the congregation was not numerous, and was 
 made up chiefly of shopkeepers and negroes, for 
 the Methodists were still a new sect. Indeed, the 
 society at New York, though it dated no farther 
 back than 1766, could have boasted with justice 
 of being the oldest Methodist society and of wor- 
 shiping in the oldest Methodist church in Amer- 
 ica. . . . When Francis Asbury landed in America 
 in 1772 there were scattered from New York to 
 
56 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM, 
 
 Georgia six preachers and a thousand members 
 of the sect. But such was the excitement of the 
 time, the energy and force of the preacher, that, 
 when Burgoyne surrendered the membership had 
 increased to seven thousand souls and the minis- 
 ters to forty. This growth is the more remarkable 
 as every English preacher except Asbury deserted 
 his flock and went back to England when the 
 war broke out. When peace came eighty-one men 
 were spreading the Methodist worship through 
 the States." 
 
 The Presbyterian failure at the beginning to 
 reach with stated preaching and with church 
 organization the very poor, the frontier regions, 
 the struggling pioneers, for a while marked the 
 history of the Church everywhere in this country. 
 Our splendid Home Missions and Church Erec- 
 tion schemes, with the money which our people 
 are pouring into their treasuries, have in recent 
 years been largely remedying that, so that now 
 the Church is bounding along in the Territories 
 and the new States. But this gratifying success 
 should not make us overlook the defect in the be- 
 ginning — a defect in the practical application of 
 one of the principles of our divinely -given system. 
 Nor should we overlook our slackness in taking 
 care of old churches which through emigration 
 have dwindled and weakened and become unable 
 
THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH 57 
 
 properly to support pastors, not a few of which 
 are to be found in the old settlements of the East 
 and in our own State. A remedy for this in its 
 bounds is provided by the Synod in the adoption 
 of its Home Missions and Sustentation scheme. 
 
 The Eldership. 
 
 But while recognizing the value of the Home 
 Missions and Sustentation scheme to supplement 
 with financial aid the efforts of the local congre- 
 gations, let us bring to the front an aggressive and 
 sustaining power that we have never yet fully put 
 forth. At both ends, the Methodist Church by its 
 local preachers, and the Episcopal Church by the 
 position to which it assigns its liturgy and by the 
 use of lay readers, can be more effective than we 
 now are — that is, in beginning and carrying on 
 worship in sparsely-settled and struggling regions 
 and in keeping it up in decaying regions ; for we 
 have acted too much on the idea that a minister 
 is absolutely needed, and until one could be 
 financially sustained the needy field has been ne- 
 glected. But we have a divinely established office 
 which could do the work better than our sister de- 
 nominations. We have never developed our elder- 
 ship as we should do. We should recognize the 
 difference of gifts among them, and encourage 
 their exercise in regions when and where the min- 
 
58 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 istry cannot be obtained or supported. Properly 
 trained, properly exercised, they could be more 
 effective than the Methodist local preachers and 
 the Episcopal lay readers with their liturgy ; and, 
 while claiming that the history shows that our 
 Church is best adapted to the settled regions and 
 to the educated classes, we should labor more 
 among the ignorant, the poor, and the neglected, 
 and draw and hold them. 
 
 Elasticity of the System. 
 
 "While finding in the review of the past reasons 
 for admiring gratitude to God, for adherence to 
 the essentials of our theological and governmental 
 standards, and for cultivating a neglected element 
 of our strength, the history furnishes also, in the 
 modification of unessentials, an exhibition of the 
 elasticity of our governmental system and of its 
 adaptation to territorial changes. 
 
 The little band of seven ministers who in 1706, 
 with their associated elders, formed the first Pres- 
 bytery on American soil were poor struggling 
 missionaries in the sparse settlements of New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. 
 No superior organization created the body or 
 authorized those ministers to organize themselves 
 into it. In virtue of the power which is inherent 
 in believers, in cases of extraordinary necessity, 
 
THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH. 59 
 
 to ordain their officers and re-create their eccle- 
 siastical organizations, they acted without au- 
 thority from any foreign power. As they grew 
 they divided and subdivided themselves into 
 Presbyteries and Synods, which sought to run 
 more and more with geographical and political 
 divisions. For a long time the lines of division 
 could not be sharply drawn. More than once 
 elective affinity was recognized and acted upon. 
 But it was felt to be abnormal and against the 
 true idea of the Church. Up to the separation in 
 1837, during the division of both branches, and 
 on the reunion, the lines of Presbyteries and Syn- 
 ods ran in the most bewildering manner. As they 
 appear in the statistical tables it is hard work to 
 locate their ministers and churches. When the 
 two branches came together there were nine Syn- 
 ods and parts of Synods and twenty-nine Presby- 
 teries and parts of Presbyteries in Pennsylvania, 
 running from and into other States, binding to- 
 gether in Presbyteries heterogeneous geographical 
 elements and running the line between homo- 
 geneous elements that should have been com- 
 pacted into the small organizations for effective 
 work. All this ran both against the unity idea 
 of the Church and against even the common- 
 sense business instincts of the people. The strug- 
 gle against it resulted, on the reunion in 1870, in 
 
60 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the adoption of strict State and geographical 
 lines, with scarcely any excepjtion, in the forma- 
 tion of the reconstructed Synods and Presbyteries. 
 And in the Consolidation Act of 1881 the idea 
 appeared in almost its perfect form in the consti- 
 tution of Provincial Synods or Assemblies coter- 
 minous with State lines. One principle, logical 
 and historical, bound together the formation of 
 1706 and those of 1881. 
 
 The first record of names in the General Pres- 
 bytery in 1707 has the same number of elders as 
 ministers. The Presbytery was in the strictest 
 sense a representative body. It represented par- 
 ticular churches. When it transformed itself into 
 the Synod it sought quickly to extend the prin- 
 ciple of representation. For a time and at times 
 the Synod was composed of delegations from the 
 Presbyteries. But the Church was not yet large 
 enough to permit that to be worked with effect. 
 When, however, it increased numerically and ex- 
 tended territorially and transformed itself into 
 the General Assembly, it returned permanently 
 to the delegated form. It did that when the whole 
 ecclesiastical force was only 177 ministers and 419 
 congregations among three million people who 
 hung as a fringe along the Atlantic coast. It was 
 again the logical carrying out of that principle 
 which, before the consolidation into State Synods, 
 
THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH. 61 
 
 and especially in connection with that act, when 
 the most of the Synods were larger than the whole 
 Church was when the Assembly was created, pro- 
 vided that those Synods should also be delegated 
 bodies. 
 
 Development of the Westminster System. 
 
 In all these movements our Church has been 
 striving after a practical realization of the scheme 
 which, with wondrous foresight, the Westminster 
 Assembly of Divines elaborated. Those who were 
 largely instrumental in formulating the change 
 which is perfected in the State Provincial Synods 
 advocated no radical movement, were not revolu- 
 tionary in form or spirit. They were influenced 
 by a careful study of our ecclesiastical principles 
 at the fountain-head; by a desire effectively to 
 develop what had always potentially existed ; and 
 by the belief that the best way to make most 
 highly effective the essential principles of our sys- 
 tem was to adapt its forms to changing circum- 
 stances. The Westminster theory was simply 
 this: The congregation represented in the Ses- 
 sion; the Sessions in the Presbytery; the Pres- 
 byteries in the Synod ; the Synods in the Assem- 
 bly ; and eventually the Assemblies in an Ecu- 
 menical Council. Great Britain and Ireland have 
 been too cramped a field on which to exhibit this 
 
62 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 system in its completeness, though an outside 
 Christian cannot see why, under the one political 
 government as they are, there should not be the 
 delegated provincial Synods or Assemblies of 
 England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, with a 
 delegated British Assembly over all. But with 
 an unconscious foresight the Westminster fathers 
 prepared a system which finds free room for its 
 expansion in these United States of America. 
 Step by step it has crept onward. The State 
 Synod movement was a great advance. Two more 
 steps remain. Under the logic of events they can- 
 not be long delayed. The reunion of the Southern 
 Church with us, which cannot be indefinitely put 
 off, will necessitate the first. Would that this cen- 
 tury could find a wider realization of it in the 
 organic union of all the Calvinistic branches of 
 the churches of the country ! The two steps are — 
 first, in the constitution of the General Assembly. 
 It has long been too large, and it is every year 
 increasing. It must be reduced in membership, 
 and it may need to meet less frequently and for a 
 longer time ; but no reduction can be made with 
 fairness on the basis of Presbyterial representa- 
 tion in it : the representation must become Synod- 
 ical — the consistent carrying out of the Westmin- 
 ster system. And the second step that remains to 
 be taken is this : The different branches of Amer- 
 
THE CAUSES OF THE GROWTH. 63 
 
 ican Presbyterianism must be brought together 
 federally, if not organically. Praying for all 
 branches of the Christian Church, we should 
 specially pray for the divided branches of Pres- 
 byterianism, "that they all may be one." 
 
IN THE NATION 
 
IN THE NATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 FLICKERING BEGINNINGS. 
 
 The adoption of the Federal Constitution, by 
 which the thirteen States became a nation, and 
 the transformation of the Synod of New York and 
 Philadelphia into the General Assembly, with the 
 adoption of the Standards of the Church, were 
 coetaneous — in 1788. 
 
 It is proposed, in this second part of this vol- 
 ume, to exhibit the numerical growth of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the whole country since 
 those events. 
 
 The two parts of the volume, with some cross 
 lines, will supplement and strengthen each other. 
 
 Varied National Origin. 
 
 In the sketch of the development of Presby- 
 terianism in Pennsylvania, which has been 
 given, it is stated that the Minutes of the Gen- 
 eral Presbytery, which was formed in 1705 or 
 1706, show that seven ministers came into the 
 
 67 
 
68 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 organization. They were settled in New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and the 
 people to whom they ministered were mainly 
 Scotch and Scotch-Irish, with a sprinkling of 
 Welsh. That Scotch and Scotch-Irish element 
 has, in its influence, ever since been the predomi- 
 nant one, in Pennsylvania especially. But in 
 proceeding to show the numerical development 
 of Presbyterianism in the country at large there 
 should be a recognition of the English, Dutch, 
 French, and German elements which have else- 
 where more largely helped to form the national 
 Church. The difficulties which they all had to 
 contend against at the outset, and the weakness 
 which they exhibited for two hundred years, will 
 be shown by a brief reference to the movements 
 of Presbyterian ministers before the formation of 
 the General Presbytery. 
 
 Isolated Ministers and Congregations. 
 
 America was discovered in 1492. For more 
 than a hundred years, down to 1614, the country 
 had no hints even looking to a Presbyterian his- 
 tory. And during the seventeenth century the 
 history is only that of itinerant preachers to 
 straggling settlements from Long Island to the 
 Carolinas ; and whether some of them were Pres- 
 byterians has been a matter of controversy : cer- 
 
FLICKERING BEGINNINGS. 69 
 
 tainly they were in no Presbyterial organization 
 and connection. These isolated laborers deserve 
 to be mentioned here. 
 
 In Virginia and Maryland. 
 
 In 1614 there seems to have been a Presbyte- 
 rian church at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, with 
 the Rev. Alexander Whitaker as pastor. But a 
 Church-of-England governor of the colony inaugu- 
 rated a persecution which broke it up in 1649, and 
 drove away its members, some to what is now An- 
 napolis, Md. There, too, they were persecuted by the 
 officials of Lord Baltimore, and were compelled to 
 maintain their existence by forcible resistance. 
 And to them went as ministers Francis Doughty 
 in 1658, Matthew Hill in 1667, William Traill in 
 1682, and Francis Makemie in 1683 — the last 
 named sent out by Laggan Presbytery, Ireland. 
 And Makemie organized the churches of Snow 
 Hill and Rehoboth in 1683. 
 
 New York. 
 
 In 1630, Richard Denton, with a congregation 
 which he had ministered to in Halifax, York- 
 shire, England, migrated to Massachusetts, and 
 afterward to Hempstead, Long Island, in 1644, 
 where he remained until 1659, when he returned 
 to England. 
 
70 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 In 1637, Francis Doughty settled in Taunton, 
 Mass., and afterward in New York in 1643, in 
 Flushing in 1650, and in Maryland in 1658. 
 After Mr. Doughty, Mr. Denton preached in New 
 York from 1650 to 1652, though no church was 
 organized there until 1717. 
 
 Long Island. 
 
 The church of Southold, Long Island, was or- 
 ganized in 1640, with John Young as pastor, and 
 in 1656 that of Jamaica, Long Island. 
 
 New Jersey. 
 
 There were organizations in 1667 in Newark, 
 in 1668 in Elizabeth, in 1680 in Woodbridge and 
 in Fairfield, by immigrants from Connecticut; 
 and in 1692 in Freehold by immigrants from 
 Scotland. 
 
 North and South Carolina. 
 
 There were Presbyterian settlers in North Caro- 
 lina as early as 1650, driven from Virginia by 
 persecution, and in South Carolina in 1670. 
 
 Huguenots. 
 
 The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove 
 hither Huguenots, who settled in New York in 
 
FLICKERING BEGINNINGS. 71 
 
 1683, Staten Island, 1685, Charleston, S. C, 1686, 
 Boston, 1687, New Rochelle, N. Y., 1688. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 As far back as 1678 it is claimed that there was 
 a movement for a Dutch Presbyterian church at 
 Norriton, Montgomery county, Pa. 
 
 New England. 
 
 Early in the century, in 1625, a Presbyterian 
 colony settled in Dorchester, - Mass., and before 
 1641 one at Salem, Mass. 
 
 Dr. Dexter (in his Congregationalism, p. 463) says : 
 " The early Congregationalism of this country was 
 Barrowism, and not Brownism — a Congregational- 
 ized Presbyterianism or a Presbyterianized Con- 
 gregationalism, which had its roots in the one sys- 
 tem and its branches in another ; which was es- 
 sentially Genevan within the local congregation, 
 and essentially other outside of it." 
 
 Subjects of Persecution. 
 
 Persecution in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, 
 and on the Continent drove many Presbyterians 
 to America, and they were scattered in little com- 
 panies through the colonies. But very weak, 
 very ineffectual, were the movements which pre- 
 ceded the formation of the General Presbytery 
 
72 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 under the prompting of Francis Makemie. " At 
 the close of the seventeenth century," it is 
 claimed, "there were at the basis of American 
 Presbyterianism a large number of Presbyterian 
 Puritan churches in New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South 
 Carolina. There were three Irish Presbyterian 
 ministers — Francis Makemie and Josias Makie in 
 Virginia, Samuel Davis in Delaware, and one 
 Scotch Presbyterian in South Carolina, Archibald 
 Stobo. Besides these, several Scotch Presbyterian 
 ministers had settled in New England Congrega- 
 tional churches " (Briggs's American Presbyterian- 
 isrrij p. 130). 
 
 Contracted Field of the Presbytery. 
 
 But, whatever the extent to which these scat- 
 tered Presbyterian churches and ministers ex- 
 isted, the list of those who constituted the Pres- 
 bytery shows how contracted was its field and 
 how few were the organizations it represented : 
 Francis Makemie of Accomac county, Virginia ; 
 Jedediah Andrews of Philadelphia ; John Wilson 
 of New Castle (then in Pennsylvania, now Dela- 
 ware); Samuel Davis of Lewes, Delaware; Na- 
 thaniel Taylor of Marlborough; John Hampton 
 of Snow Hill, Maryland ; and George MacNish of 
 Maryland ; and ruling elders (at the second meet- 
 
FLICKERING BEGINNINGS. 73 
 
 ing) Joseph Yard, William Smith, John Gardiner, 
 James Stoddard. Not from all the fields that have 
 been mentioned above did any representatives ap- 
 pear, and not for some time after were some of 
 these brought into the organization. 
 
 So unpromising were the first hundred years of 
 American Presbyterian history, so weak was the 
 first organized meeting. 
 
 Eighty Organized Years. 
 
 Then for eighty years slowly, slowly, against 
 tremendous and multiplied difficulties — obsta- 
 cles without, strife within — under the General 
 Presbytery, the General Synod, the divided Syn- 
 ods of Philadelphia and New York, the reunited 
 Synod of New York and Philadelphia, the poor 
 Church struggled on, and when its General As- 
 sembly was formed had 177 ministers and 419 
 congregations, 204 of which had no ministers. 
 Not very cheering even yet the prospect. 
 
 But from that time an advance that is stimu- 
 lating will be seen. 
 
II. 
 
 ALL DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 Before proceeding to that, let the present 
 strength in the United States of all the religious 
 denominations be exhibited, showing at a glance 
 where among its sister organizations the Pres- 
 byterian Church now stands. Its weakness for 
 so long and its present relative position will give 
 greater intensity to what is to follow. 
 
 National Census Reports of 1890. 
 
 The following summary is made up from the 
 National Census reports of 1890, the latest, it will 
 be understood, that have been made. Those re- 
 ports embrace only the number of organizations 
 or congregations in the different denominations, 
 with their communicants, and the church edifices 
 with their accommodations and value. The last 
 three items are important contributions to our 
 knowledge of the strength of the churches. 
 
 Congregations, Communicants, Edifices, Ac- 
 commodations, Value. 
 
 There were in 1890, in the United States, 143 
 
ALL DENOMINATIONS. 75 
 
 different religious denominations, with 110,641 
 ministers, 165,177 organizations or congregations, 
 in which were 20,612,806 communicants or mem- 
 bers, having 165,855 church edifices and halls, 
 with a seating capacity of 46,015,721, valued at 
 $679,630,139. 
 
 The Eight Largest. 
 
 The great numerical strength in all these de- 
 partments of figures, however, is concentrated in 
 eight families of churches which have each over 
 five hundred thousand members, and combined 
 have over nineteen millions of the 20,612,806 — 
 viz. the Baptists (with thirteen divisions), the 
 Eoman Catholics, the Congregationalists, the Dis- 
 ciples of Christ, the Lutherans (seventeen), the 
 Methodists (seventeen), the Presbyterians and 
 Reformed (fifteen), and the Protestant Episco- 
 palians. 
 
 The Remainder. 
 
 There are six others which have above one 
 hundred thousand members each: Christians, 
 103,722; Friends, 107,208; German Evangelical 
 Synod, 187,432; Jewish 130,496; Latter-Day 
 Saints, 166,125 ; United Brethren, 225,281. Only 
 three others reach 50,000 : Adventists, 60,401 ; 
 Dunkards, 73,795; Unitarians, 67,749. Of those 
 
76 AMERICAN PRESBYTEPJANISM. 
 
 that run above 5000, the Christian Scientists have 
 8724; the Christian Union, 18,214; the Church 
 of God (Winebrennarian), 22,511 ; Church of the 
 New Jerusalem, 7095 ; German EvangeHcal Prot- 
 estant, 36,156 ; Mennonites, 41,541 ; Moravians, 
 11,781 ; Salvation Army, 8742 ; Spiritualists, 
 45,030; Universalists, 49,194; independent con- 
 gregations, 14,126. 
 
 Relative Strength. 
 
 The strength of each of the eight families of 
 churches which contain so immense a proportion 
 of the religious people of the country is, in the 
 different columns, as follows, as given officially in 
 1890. 
 
 Baptists. — 25,646 ministers; 42,909 organiza- 
 tions; 3,712,468 communicants or members; 
 43,210 buildings; 12,165,710 sittings, value, 
 $82,328,123. 
 
 Roman Catholics. — 9196 ministers; 10,276 or- 
 ganizations; 6,257,871 members; 10,296 build- 
 ings; 3,447,816 sittings ; value, $118,009,746. 
 
 Congregationalists. — 5058 ministers ; 4868 or- 
 ganizations; 512,771 members; 5192 buildings; 
 1,595,726 sittings ; value, $43,335,437. 
 
 Disciples of Christ. — 3773 ministers; 7246 or- 
 ganizations; 641,051 members; 5192 buildings; 
 1,592,726 sittings ; value, $12,206,038. 
 
ALL DENOMINATIONS. 77 
 
 Lutherans. — 4591 ministers ; 8595 organizations ; 
 1,231,072 members; 8015 buildings; 2,310,262 
 sittings; value, $35,060,354. 
 
 Methodists. — 30,000 ministers ; 51,489 organiza- 
 tions; 4,589,284 members; 52,195 buildings; 
 13,515,816 sittings; value, $132,140,179. 
 
 Presbyterians and Reformed. — 11,954 ministers; 
 15,657 organizations ; 1,587,790 members ; 15,975 
 buildings; 5,046,675 sittings; value, $113,613,329. 
 
 Protestant Episcopalians. — 4224 ministers; 5102 
 organizations ; 5417 buildings ; 1,388,284 sittings ; 
 value, $82,835,418. 
 
 The First Four. 
 
 Three-fourths of the religious strength of the 
 country, in all the columns of figures, are in four 
 of the denominations — the Baptists, Roman 
 Catholics, Methodists, and Presbyterians. They 
 have nearly 16,000,000 of the 20,612,806 commu- 
 nicants. And their relative strength in each 
 particular is as follows: 
 
 In Ministers— Methodists, 30,000 ; Baptists, 
 25,646; Presbyterians and Reformed, 11,954; 
 Roman Catholics, 9196. 
 
 Organizations — Methodists, 51,489; Baptists, 
 42,909; Presbyterians and Reformed, 15,657; 
 Roman Catholics, 10,276. 
 
 Communicants — Roman Catholics, 6,257,871 ; 
 
78 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Methodists, 4,589,284; Baptists, 3,712,486; Pres- 
 byterians and Reformed, 1,587,790. 
 
 Buildings— Methodists, 52,195 ; Baptists, 43,210; 
 Presbyterians and Reformed, 15,975; Roman 
 Catholics, 10,296. 
 
 Sittings— Methodists, 13,515,816; Baptists, 12,- 
 165,710; Presbyterian and Reformed, 5,046,675; 
 Roman Catholics, 3,447,816. 
 
 Value of Edifices— Methodists, $132,140,179; 
 Roman Catholics, $118,009,746; Presbyterians 
 and Reformed, $113,613,329 ; Baptists, $82,328,123. 
 
 In the Largest States. 
 
 As to the total religious strength in the largest 
 States, while New York (with its population of 
 5,997,853) reports the largest number of members, 
 2,171,822, and Pennsylvania (with its population 
 of 5,258,014) the next, 1,726,640 members, fol- 
 lowed by Ohio (with its population of 3,672,316), 
 1,215,409 members, and then by Illinois (popula- 
 tion, 3,826,351), 1,202,588 members ; and while in 
 the value of church edifices the order is the same : 
 New York, $140,123,008 ; Pennsylvania, $85,917,- 
 370; Ohio, $42,138,862; Illinois, $39,715,245; 
 Massachusetts, however, coming before Ohio with 
 $46,835,014 ; in the seating capacity of its churches, 
 2,868,490, New York falls behind Pennsylvania, 
 which has 3,592,019, and in the number of organ- 
 
ALL DENOMINATIONS. 79 
 
 izations, 8237, and edifices, 7942, behind Illinois 
 (organizations 8296) and Ohio (organizations 9345, 
 edifices 8857), and even behind Texas in organiza- 
 tions (8766). 
 
 Southern Church Accommodations. 
 
 In the matter of church accommodations a 
 marked and striking difference between the 
 Northern and Southern States appears: the fig- 
 ures are much larger proportionately in the latter 
 than in the former. Indeed, it is a surprise to 
 know that in some of the latter the church sit- 
 tings are more than the population. Thus Dela- 
 ware has 111,172 church sittings for a population 
 of 108,493 ; Georgia, 2,108,566 for 1,837,353 ; Mis- 
 sissippi, 1,330,542 for 1,289,600; North Carolina, 
 2,192,835 for 1,617,947 ; South Carolina, 1,199,908 
 for 1,151,149 ; Tennessee, 1,811,942 for 1,767,518. 
 Others of these States have sittings almost equal 
 to the population : Florida, 391,132 for 391,422 ; 
 Arkansas, 1,041,040 for 1,128,179; Kentucky, 
 1,504,736 for 1,858,635; Virginia, 1,490,675 for 
 1,655,980. The States in that section which are 
 more like the North in this respect are — Louisi- 
 ana, which has 617,245 sittings for a population 
 of 1,118,587, and Texas, 1,567,745 sittings for a 
 population of 2,235,523. 
 
 These figures would suggest that the Southern 
 
80 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 section of our country is more thoroughly per- 
 meated by religion than the Northern — at least in 
 the places to which the people may resort for wor- 
 ship and instruction. But what is the explana- 
 tion of the fact that in some of them the churches 
 can accommodate more than there are people in 
 the State, men, women, and children, religious and 
 irreligious, all told? The fact, we confess, has 
 been a surprise to us; the explanation cannot 
 strike us, especially as the populations of those 
 States have been not decreasing, but steadily in- 
 creasing, so that the churches are not in aban- 
 doned places which were once populous. 
 
 Two Peculiar States. 
 
 The figures for Utah are of interest, because of 
 its peculiar feature and questions that may pos- 
 sibly arise in the future. Among its population 
 of 207,905 are 427 organizations, with 128,115 
 members, 437 edifices and halls, with 113,971 
 sittings, and valued at $1,493,791. Of these the 
 Mormons report 307 organizations with 118,201 
 members, and 309 edifices and halls, with 93,390 
 sittings, and valued at $736,916. That leaves only 
 120 organizations, with 9914 members, and 128 
 edifices and halls, with 20,581 sittings, valued at 
 $756,875, to other denominations. The other 
 churches which report members in Utah are — 
 
ALL DENOMINATIONS. gl 
 
 ta^.'^nu^.' ^^' ^^P"'*'' ^27; Eoman Catholics, 
 5958; Christian Scientists, 100; Congregationalists, 
 460; Disciples of Christ, 270; Lutherans, 84- 
 Methodists, 1055 ; Presbyterians, 1207; Protestant 
 il^piscopahans, 751 ; Salvation Army 4 With a 
 
 T9SanT'T^'''''^P °^ ^^^'201 ''^ ^ population 
 ot 207,905, the new State cannot but be under ab- 
 solute Mormon control. 
 
 Perhaps there is only one other of our great 
 
 political divisions in which the adherents of one 
 
 Church form a majority of the population. New 
 
 Mexico, with a population of 155,593, has 100,576 
 
 Koman Catholic communicants. Nowhere else 
 
 does any one denomination number a fifth of the 
 
 population ; so that, if there were any fear of any 
 
 one seeking to control the political situation, the 
 
 attempt to do so would be futile. 
 
III. 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED. 
 
 The summary of the Presbyterian and Re- 
 formed churches embraced in the foregoing is 
 made up as follows: 
 
 The National (Northern) . . . 
 
 The Cumberland 
 
 The Cumberland (colored) . . 
 The Welsh Calvinistic .... 
 
 The United 
 
 The Southern 
 
 The Associate of N. America . 
 The Associate Ref. Synod of 
 
 South 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterian 
 
 in the U. S. (Synod) .... 
 The Reformed Presbyterian 
 
 in N. America (Gen. Synod) 
 Reformed Presbyterian (Cov- 
 enanted) 
 
 Reformed Presbyterian in the 
 
 U. S. and Canada 
 
 The Reformed in America 
 
 (Dutch) 
 
 The Reformed in the U. S. 
 
 (German) 
 
 The Christian Reformed . . . 
 
 6,717 
 
 2,971 
 
 224 
 
 187 
 
 866 
 
 2,391 
 
 31 
 
 116 
 
 115 
 
 33 
 
 788.224 
 
 169,940 
 
 12,956 
 
 12,722 
 
 94,402 
 
 179,721 
 
 1,053 
 
 8,501 
 
 10,574 
 
 4,602 
 
 37 
 
 1 600 
 
 572 ' 92,970 
 
 1510 , 204,018 
 99 12,470 
 
 13 
 
 7,220 
 
 2,560 
 
 207 
 
 203 
 
 882 
 
 2,431 
 
 31 
 
 121 
 
 118 
 
 84 
 
 678 
 
 1,365 
 110 
 
 2,282,249 
 
 754,095 
 
 55,709 
 
 45,711 
 
 268,228 
 
 710,738 
 
 5,194 
 
 37,590 
 
 37,695 
 
 12,480 
 
 200 
 
 258,673 
 
 540,758 
 33,955 
 
 874,455,200 
 
 3.515,510 
 
 195,826 
 
 625,875 
 
 5,408,084 
 
 8,812,152 
 
 29,200 
 
 211,850 
 
 1,071,400 
 
 469,000 
 
 75,000 
 
 10,340,159 
 
 7,975,583 
 428,500 
 
 A brief explanation of the peculiarities of the 
 different members of this family of churches may 
 be helpful to some readers. 
 
 82 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED. 83 
 
 The bond which unites them as Presbyterian 
 and Reformed is their adoption of confessional 
 Calvinism in doctrine, and the government of 
 their churches, in an ascending grade of judi- 
 catories, by presbyters or elders, teaching and 
 ruling. 
 
 The Northern. 
 
 The commonly called Northern Presbyterian 
 Church, holding on to its organization in this 
 country from 1705 or 1706, adheres to the West- 
 minster Confession unchanged, except in its state- 
 ments concerning the relation of civil officers to 
 the Church and the marriage of a deceased wife's 
 sister. 
 
 The Cumberland. 
 
 The Cumberland Presbyterian Church origi- 
 nated in a revival in Kentucky in the beginning 
 of this century and in the bounds of Transylvania 
 Presbytery. Pressed by the lack of regular min- 
 isters to supply its multiplied congregations, the 
 Presbytery licensed men without the constitu- 
 tional qualifications. The Cumberland Presbytery, 
 which had been formed out of the Transylvania, 
 was dissolved by the Synod for its irregularities, 
 some of its ministers suspended, and others at- 
 tached to Transylvania. That led to the with- 
 drawal of some and the formation of an independ- 
 
84 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 ent Presbytery in 1810, called the Cumberland. 
 The doctrinal difference from the mother Church 
 lies in a dissent from the alleged Westminster 
 teaching as to reprobation, a limited atonement, 
 infant salvation, and the calling of the elect only. 
 The Confession was revised in 1883, and reduced 
 to one hundred and nineteen short paragraphs. 
 
 Cumberland (Colored). 
 
 The Cumberland Presbyterian (colored) Church 
 went out from, and was organized by, the Cum- 
 berland General Assembly in 1869 at Murfrees- 
 boro, Tennessee, being constituted of colored min- 
 isters and members from that Church. Its 
 symbols are those of the parent body. Its first 
 Synod, Tennessee, was constituted in 1871, and 
 its General Assembly in 1871. As its title indi- 
 cates, it is composed wholly of colored people. 
 
 The Southern. 
 
 The Southern Presb3^terian Church seceded 
 from the Northern on account of slavery and the 
 Civil War. In 1858 the churches of the New 
 School in the South separated from that organiza- 
 tion because of differences on slavery. They 
 were 4 Synods and 15 Presbyteries, and organ- 
 ized the United Synod, South. In 1861, on ac- 
 count of the Civil War, the Old School churches 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED. 85 
 
 in the South, withdrew from the Old School 
 Assembly, and formed " The Presbyterian Church 
 in the Confederate States of America," with 11 
 Synods and 47 Presbyteries. In 1864 that body 
 and the United Synod South united in the present 
 Southern organization under the present title. 
 
 The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist. 
 
 The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church, as its 
 name suggests, came from Wales and from " the 
 Methodist " revival of the last century, in which 
 Whitefield, as well as Wesley, was so prominent. 
 In 1811 the organization in Wales withdrew from 
 the Church of England. The first Welsh Calvin- 
 istic Methodist Church in the United States was 
 formed in Remsen, New York, in 1826. A Presby- 
 tery was constituted three years later. In 1869 a 
 General Assembly was organized. The Church 
 is Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in gov- 
 ernment, and exists among the Welsh in thirteen 
 States. 
 
 The United in North America. 
 
 The United Presbyterian Church in North 
 America was organized in 1858 by a union of the 
 Associate and Associate Reformed Presbyterians 
 — organizations which had come from Scotland. 
 "It accepts the Westminster Confession of Faith 
 
86 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN ISM. 
 
 and Catechisms, modifying somewhat the chapter 
 on the powers of the civil magistrates." Accom- 
 panying these standards as a part of the basis of 
 the union was a "judicial testimony declaring the 
 sense in which these symbols are received." It 
 resists secret oath-bound societies, and uses the 
 Book of Psalms exclusively in singing. 
 
 The Associate of North America. 
 
 The Associate Church of North America is com- 
 posed of ministers and members of the Associate 
 Reformed Church who refused to join in the union 
 of 1858 which formed the United Presbyterian 
 Church, as stated above. It is found in eight 
 States. So-called Associate Presbyterians in their 
 origin were a secession from the Church of Scot- 
 land led by Ebenezer Erskine. In 1753 a Presby- 
 tery was organized in Pennsylvania. " In 1782 
 most of these Presbyterians, who held what are 
 known as the Marrow doctrines, united with Re- 
 formed Presbyterians, whence came in course of 
 time various bodies of Associate Reformed Pres- 
 byterians. There were Associate Presbyterians, 
 however, who did not join this union, and these 
 organized in 1801 a Synod." 
 
 Associate Reformed Synod of the South. 
 The Associate Reformed Synod of the South 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED. 87 
 
 was a secession in 1821, caused by differences on 
 the Psalmody and Communion questions, from the 
 General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church, 
 It is found in twelve States. 
 
 Reformed Presbyterian Synod and General 
 
 Synod. 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterians are the ecclesias- 
 tical descendants of the Covenanters of Scotland. 
 The General Synod and the Synod, originating in 
 a division of the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
 in 1833, agree in the protest against civil govern- 
 ments which do not recognize the headship of 
 Christ. The latter does not allow its members to 
 vote or hold office under our government; the 
 former does. The latter is in nineteen States ; the 
 former in nine. 
 
 The five churches last named are all " Psalm- 
 singing," and are strict adherents to the Westmin- 
 ster Standards. 
 
 The Dutch Reformed. 
 
 The Reformed Church in America (Dutch) and 
 the Reformed Church in the United States (Ger- 
 man) are Presbyterian and Calvinistic, the former 
 coming from Holland, the latter from Germany. 
 Their judicatories are called Consistories, Classes, 
 and General Synod. 
 
88 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 The Dutch had its first church here in 1628. 
 The Belgic Confession, the Canons of the Synod 
 of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism are its 
 modern creeds. It has in the United States a 
 General Synod, four Particular Synods, and thirty- 
 three Classes in fourteen States. At first " Dutch " 
 in title and in language, it has ceased so to be. 
 The word " Dutch " was dropped in 1867. 
 
 The German Reformed. 
 
 The German came from the Reformed Churph 
 in the Palatinate, a province of Germany. Con- 
 gregations in it go back to the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, and in 1793 it formed an inde- 
 pendent organization here. It has here a General 
 Synod, eight Synods, six English and two Ger- 
 man, and fifty-five Classes in twenty -eight States 
 and the District of Columbia. Its symbol is the 
 Heidelberg Catechism. More than half of its 
 strength is among the Germans in Pennsylvania. 
 The word " German " was dropped from its official 
 title in 1869. 
 
 The Christian Reformed. 
 
 The Christian Reformed Church comes from an 
 organization in Holland which was in 1835 a 
 secession from the Reformed Church of Holland 
 on account of latitudinarian teaching in the State 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED. 89 
 
 Church. At different tiraes there have been addi- 
 tions to it from the Dutch Reformed Church, be- 
 cause of the refusal of the latter to condemn Free 
 Masonry. It has a Synod and seven Classes in 
 thirteen States. 
 
 The census returns report also four congrega- 
 tions with thirty-seven members, called The Re- 
 formed Presbyterian (Covenanted), and another 
 congregation of six hundred members, called the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States and Canada — secessions, the one from the 
 Synod, the other from the General Synod. 
 
IV. 
 
 - THE NATIONAL, CUMBERLAND, AND 
 SOUTHERN. 
 
 For the purpose now had in view, only the 
 National, the Southern, and the Cumberland 
 organizations will demand our special attention. 
 The others were never in organic union with our 
 National Presbyterian Church, and hence their 
 figures are not embraced in the earlier reports, 
 so that any comparison which should embrace 
 their present figures would make an inordinately 
 favorable exhibit as to the Presbyterian growth 
 in proportion to the population. Comparisons 
 which would include their present figures should, 
 to make a truthful impression, include their earlier 
 ones, and we do not have them, nor can they be 
 fully and accurately obtained. The Southern and 
 the Cumberland must, however, be embraced: 
 they were once a part organically of the National 
 Church. They are included in the earlier figures, 
 the Cumberland until 1810, and the Southern 
 until 1861, in which years respectively they went 
 out from our National Church : they must also be 
 embraced in the later figures that a proper view 
 may be had of the growth of Presbyterianism in the 
 nation. 
 
 90 
 
NATIONAL, CUMBERLAND, AND SOUTHERN. 91 
 
 Their Titles. 
 
 The Southern Church has as its full title " The 
 Presbyterian Church in the United States ;" what 
 is commonly called the Northern Church is " The 
 Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
 America." It will not be invidious, for brevity's 
 sake, to call the latter the National Presbyterian 
 Church, since it has members in every State and 
 Territory but one (Mississippi), while the South- 
 ern Church lies wholly in the Southern States, 
 with the exception of a couple of congregations 
 with 79 members in Indiana. 
 
 The Cumberland. 
 
 The independent Cumberland Presbytery was 
 formed in 1810 by three ministers. The early 
 figures of the body cannot be obtained. In 1813 
 the Presbytery divided itself into three Presby- 
 teries, and constituted itself the Cumberland 
 Synod. In 1822 the number of ordained mem- 
 bers was 46. A history of the Church published 
 in 1835 estimated the numbers then as follows: 
 9 Synods, 35 Presbyteries, 300 ministers, 100 li- 
 centiates, and 50,000 communicants. In 1828 the 
 Synod was divided into four Synods, and met as 
 a General Assembly in 1829, having 16 Presby- 
 teries under it. 
 
92 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 The Southern. 
 
 When the Southern General Assembly, seced- 
 ing from the Old School, was organized in 1861, 
 it included 10 Synods, 47 Presbyteries, about 700 
 ministers, 1000 churches, 75,000 communicants — 
 about 10,000 of them colored. In 1864 an organic 
 union was formed between it and "The United 
 Synod of the South," which in 1859 had seceded 
 from the New School. This added about 120 
 ministers , 190 churches, and 12,000 communi- 
 cants. The Presbytery of Patapsco, of the Synod 
 of Baltimore, united with it, adding 6 ministers, 3 
 churches, and 576 communicants. In 1869, in 
 the Synod of Kentucky 75 ministers, 137 churches, 
 13,540 communicants also withdrew from the Na- 
 tional Church and entered it; and in 1874, 67 
 ministers, 141 churches, and 8000 communicants 
 from the Synod of Missouri. These figures com- 
 bined would make about 968 ministers, 1471 
 churches, and 109,116 communicants who with- 
 drew from the parent organization into the 
 Southern Church. 
 
 The Cumberland Colored. 
 The Cumberland Colored Church was organized 
 in May, 1869, at Murfreesboro, Tenn., under the 
 direction of the General Assembly of the Cum- 
 berland Church, out of its membership. Its first 
 
NATIONAL, CUMBERLAND, AND SOUTHERN. 93 
 
 Synod, Tennessee, was organized in 1871, and its 
 General Assembly in 1874. It had in 1890, 23 
 Presbyteries, 224 congregations, 183 edifices, 12,956 
 communicants, and property valued at $195,826 — 
 in ten States. These are the latest figures we have 
 been able to secure. 
 
 Their National Distribution. 
 
 The following collation from the census re- 
 ports will show the distribution of these branches, 
 which were formerly one, through the States and 
 Territories. It gives the communicants in 1890, 
 and so does not exhibit their full strength in 
 1895 (which will next be given), but it reveals 
 their national and State relation: 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Alaska 
 
 Arizona 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 California 
 
 Colorado 
 
 Connecticut .... 
 Delaware ..... 
 District of Columbia 
 
 Florida 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Idaho 
 
 Illinois 
 
 
 
 •o 
 
 
 
 PI 
 
 
 d 
 
 03 
 
 a 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 a 
 
 (U 
 
 a> 
 
 o 
 
 .£3 
 
 ,CI 
 
 '■s 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
 O 
 
 f3 
 
 "^ 
 
 cc 
 
 o 
 
 152 
 
 10,560 
 
 7,390 
 
 481 
 
 
 
 188 
 
 
 
 494 
 
 4,478 
 
 12,282 
 
 16,236 
 
 . . . 
 
 1,496 
 
 5,902 
 
 
 231 
 
 1,680 
 
 
 
 4,622 
 
 
 
 4,882 
 
 246 
 
 
 1,042 
 
 3,444 
 
 88 
 
 1,370 
 
 12,096 
 
 598 
 
 815 
 
 
 
 54,744 
 
 . . . 
 
 14,177 
 
 a 
 
 3,104 
 225 
 
 195 
 
94 
 
 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Indiana ... 
 Indian Territory 
 
 Iowa 
 
 Kansas .... 
 Kentucky . . . . 
 Louisiana . . . . 
 Maine . . . . . 
 Maryland . . . , 
 Massachusetts . . 
 Michigan . . . . 
 Minnesota . . . 
 Mississippi . . . 
 Missouri . . . . 
 Montana . . . , 
 Nebraska . . . . 
 
 Nevada 
 
 New Hampshire 
 New Jersey . . . 
 New Mexico . . 
 New York . . . 
 North Carolina . 
 North Dakota . . 
 
 Ohio 
 
 Oklahoma . . . 
 
 Oregon 
 
 Pennsylvania . . 
 Rhode Island . . 
 South Carolina . 
 South Dakota . . 
 Tennessee . . . . 
 
 Texas 
 
 Utah 
 
 Vermont . . . . 
 Virginia . . . . 
 Washington . . . 
 West Virginia . . 
 Wisconsin . . . 
 Wyoming .... 
 
 35,464 
 
 1,803 
 
 29,994 
 
 24,050 
 
 6,917 
 
 70 
 
 205 
 
 10,593 
 
 3,570 
 
 25,088 
 
 13,732 
 
 17,272 
 
 1,232 
 
 12,159 
 
 275 
 
 956 
 
 58,759 
 
 1,275 
 
 154,083 
 
 6,516 
 
 3,036 
 
 82,444 
 
 450 
 
 3,935 
 
 161,386 
 
 608 
 
 6,829 
 
 4,413 
 
 4,399 
 
 2,812 
 
 688 
 
 230 
 
 945 
 
 3,770 
 
 4,275 
 
 11,019 
 
 364 
 
 79 
 629 
 
 10,915 
 4,926 
 
 1,654 
 
 11,055 
 10,363 
 
 27,477 
 
 16,561 
 
 15,954 
 10,744 
 
 26,515 
 '5,995 
 
 4,826 
 1,229 
 1,167 
 2,386 
 15,458 
 868 
 
 6,353 
 23,390 
 
 416 
 
 2,602 
 
 897 
 6,210 
 
 39,477 
 22,297 
 
 470 
 32 
 
 04*0 
 O o 
 
 II 
 
 o 
 
 190 
 1,421 
 
 278 
 471 
 
 100 
 
 5,202 
 1,740 
 
NATIONAL, CUMBERLAND, AND SOUTHERN. 95 
 
 Their Combined Strength. 
 
 The combined figures of the three now separate 
 organizations are (in 1895) — 3 General Assem- 
 blies ; 59 Synods ; 424 Presbyteries ; 13,156 con- 
 gregations; 10,887 preachers of the gospel (or- 
 dained ministers 9838, licentiates 834, local evan- 
 gelists 215;) 2170 candidates for the ministry; 
 46,448 ruling elders; 20,579 deacons; 1,320,296 
 communicants; 1,263,831 Sabbath-school mem- 
 bers. Last year 384 young men were licensed to 
 preach; 340 were ordained to the ministry; 89 
 ministers were received from other denomina- 
 tions ; 235 new churches were organized and 14 
 received from other denominations; 98,110 per- 
 sons were added to the communion rolls on pro- 
 fession and 46,298 on certificate; 30,760 adults 
 and 33,233 infants were baptized. The amount 
 of money raised last year was $15,966,890, di- 
 vided as follows : for congregational expenses, 
 $11,723,052; General Assemblies' expenses, 
 $103,392; benevolent causes, $4,140,446. The 
 benevolent contributions were to the following 
 causes : Home Missions, $1,558,316 ; Foreign Mis- 
 sions, $863,461; Education, $422,541; Sabbath- 
 school missionary work, $141,151 ; Ministerial 
 Relief, $116,084; miscellaneous, $1,038,893. 
 
 In the Home Missions figures are included the 
 
96 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 contributions to the Home Missions, Freedmen's, 
 Sustentation, and Church Erection Boards and 
 Committees ; in the Education, the contributions 
 to the Education and College Aid Boards and 
 Committees. 
 
 In the preceding table and in the comparisons 
 which follow we oannot include the Colored Cum- 
 berland. Its Assembly Minutes, with statistical 
 tables, are not published, and all that we have been 
 able to secure are the five general statements of 
 the census reports of 1890. They would add 23 
 Presbyteries, 224 congregations, and 12,956 com- 
 municants, making the total of the four now in 
 those columns at least 447 Presbyteries, 13,380 
 congregations, 1,333,252 communicants. But, as 
 we cannot run the colored figures through all the 
 comparisons, we will not include these. It should 
 be remembered, however, that they would slightly 
 increase all the totals — not so, however, as se- 
 riously to affect them, not at all affecting the im- 
 pressions made. 
 
 The Comparative Summary. 
 
 It will be well to give here, side by side, the 
 summary, published by the Stated Clerk of each 
 General Assembly, so that all may be easy of 
 reference, and that the proportion which belongs 
 to each may be clearly manifest : 
 
NATIONAL, CUMBERLAND, AND SOUTHERN. 97 
 
 Synods 
 
 Presbyteries 
 
 Congregations . . . . 
 Preachers : 
 
 Ordained ministers 
 
 Licentiates . . . . 
 
 Local evangelists . 
 
 Candidates 
 
 Ruling elders . . . . 
 
 Deacons 
 
 Communicants. . . . 
 S.-S. members . . . . 
 
 Licensures 
 
 Ordinations 
 
 Ministers received . . 
 Churches organized . 
 " received . . 
 Added on profession . 
 " certificate . 
 Adult baptisms . . . 
 Infant " . . . 
 
 Contributions : 
 
 Congregational . . 
 
 General Assembly . 
 
 Home Missions . . 
 
 Sustentation . , . . 
 
 Freedmen 
 
 Church Erection . . 
 
 Foreign Missions . 
 
 Education . . . . 
 
 College Aid . . . . 
 
 Ministerial Relief . 
 
 S.-S. Work . . . . 
 
 Miscellaneous . . . 
 
 National. 
 
 Southern. 
 
 31 
 
 13 
 
 224 
 
 74 
 
 7,496 
 
 2,776 
 
 6,797 
 
 1,337 
 
 474 
 
 79 
 
 215 
 
 
 1,477 
 
 425 
 
 26,590 
 
 8,481 
 
 9,058 
 
 6,808 
 
 922,904 
 
 203,999 
 
 994,793 
 
 154,273 
 
 315 
 
 69 
 
 273 
 
 67 
 
 82 
 
 7 
 
 176 
 
 59 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 67,938 
 
 13,598 
 
 38,734 
 
 7,564 
 
 25,729 
 
 5,031 
 
 27,731 
 
 5,502 
 
 19,921,141 
 
 $1,439,945 
 
 89,329 
 
 14,073 
 
 997,500 
 
 32,760 
 
 72,265 
 
 98,362 
 
 111,448 
 
 9,623 
 
 217,824 
 
 . . . 
 
 712,877 
 
 111,877 
 
 214,637 
 
 51,848 
 
 145,964 
 
 
 92,932 
 
 13,256 
 
 133,682 
 
 7,469 
 
 937,980 
 
 100,913 
 
 Cumberland. 
 
 15 
 126 
 
 2,884 
 
 1,704 
 
 281 
 
 268 
 
 11,377 
 
 4,713 
 
 193,393 
 
 114,765 
 
 16,574 
 
 $361,966 
 13,867 
 
 4,667 
 38,707 
 10,092 
 
 9,896 
 
V. 
 
 NUMERICAL INCREASE. 
 
 Now, concentrating the attention upon these 
 three Presbyterian churches, compare in detail the 
 later figures with the corresponding columns on 
 their first appearance in the reports. 
 
 Synods and Presbyteries. 
 
 In 1788, as the Church was entering upon the 
 national stadium with its newly-organized Gen- 
 eral Assembly, it had four S3aiods, New York and 
 New Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, and the Caro- 
 linas, and 16 Presbyteries: Dutchess; Suffolk 
 New York and New Brunswick ; Philadelphia 
 Lewestown; New Castle; Baltimore; Carlisle 
 Redstone; Hanover; Lexington and Transyl- 
 vania ; Abingdon ; Orange ; South Carolina. Un- 
 der the three General Assemblies descending from 
 that Assembly there are now 59 Synods and 424 
 Presbyteries. The names of the first Synods and 
 Presbyteries suggest the narrow field of the 
 Church — simply fringing the Atlantic from New 
 York to South Carolina: the long list of the 
 Synods and Presbyteries now in existence covers 
 every State and Territory in the Union from 
 
 98 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 99 
 
 Maine and the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of 
 Mexico and across the land to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Ministers and Congregations. 
 
 In 1788 there were 177 ordained ministers upon 
 the roll ; there are now 9838. There were nom- 
 inally 429 congregations; there are now 13,156. 
 
 The population of the country in 1788 was less 
 than 3,900,000 (in 1790 it was 3,924,124 ;) now it 
 is, we suppose, nearly 70,000,000 (it was 62,622,250 
 in 1890). 
 
 The increase of population has been, therefore, 
 less than eighteen-fold, while that of the Presby- 
 terian ministers has been fiftv-five-fold, and of 
 congregations more than thirty-fold. The pro- 
 portionate statement concerning the congrega- 
 tions is beneath the reality, for of the 429 in 1788, 
 204 were vacant, and as there were but 177 min- 
 isters, we may feel assured that those 204 were 
 generally the mere shadows of a name ; and it is 
 safe to say that the increase of congregations has 
 been sixty-fold. 
 
 Fourscore Years Ago, and Now. 
 
 Gillett, in his History of the Presbyterian Church, 
 gives the following table concerning what was 
 fourscore years ago the immense missionary region 
 west of the Alleghenies and east of the Mississippi : 
 
100 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Presbyterian 
 Population. churches. 
 
 Ohio 330,000 78 
 
 Western Virginia 75,000 12 
 
 Kentucky 400,000 91 
 
 Tennessee 260,000 79 
 
 Louisiana 120,000 
 
 Missouri Territory 21,000 
 
 Mississippi Territory 58,000 6 
 
 Indiana Territory 25,000 1 
 
 Illinois Territory • 13,000 
 
 1,302,000 268 
 
 Put beside that the following table, drawn from 
 the census of 1890 : 
 
 Presbyterian 
 
 Population. churches. 
 
 Ohio 3,672,316 828 
 
 Western Virginia 762,794 140 
 
 Kentucky 1,858,635 507 
 
 Tennessee 1,767,518 864 
 
 Louisiana 1,118,587 88 
 
 Missouri Territory 2,679,184 776 
 
 Mississippi Territory 1,289,000 352 
 
 Indiana Territory 2,192,404 389 
 
 Illinois Territory 3,826,351 752 
 
 19,166,789 4696 
 
 The population now in those sections is nearly 
 fifteen times as large and is more than one-fourth 
 of the whole population of the United States, with 
 nearly eighteen times as many churches, and 
 more than one-third of the whole number in the 
 three branches of the denomination, Missouri, 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 101 
 
 without a Presbyterian church then, has now 
 776; Illinois, without any then, now has 752. 
 
 Ministers during the Revolution. 
 
 When the Revolutionary War broke out there 
 was in the country one General Synod with 11 
 Presbyteries and 135 ministers. (The congrega- 
 tions and communicants cannot be given.) From 
 Massachusetts to the Carolinas, among three mil- 
 lions of people, there were scattered not as many 
 ministers as are now in Philadelphia with its 
 million people. If the country were to-day sup- 
 plied only in the same proportion as the strug- 
 gling colonies were, it would have less than two 
 thousand Presbyterian ministers, instead of the 
 10,887 who are on the denominational rolls. 
 
 Communicants. 
 
 How many communicants were there in 1788 ? 
 We do not know, but we can approximate to the 
 number. The first year in which they were re- 
 ported was 1807. The total was then 17,871, The 
 reports, however, were very incomplete. Out of 
 the 29 Presbyteries, 12 made no return. Some 
 of them did not report for several years afterward. 
 But, including the first reports that they did 
 make with those of 1807, the number could not 
 possibly be above 22,000. (The next year the 
 
102 AMERICAN rRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 number was 21,270.) Certainly there were not 
 more than 20,000 in 1807. The congregations 
 then were 598, the average number of communi- 
 cants in a congregation being, therefore, about 33. 
 Allow the same average in 1788, when there were 
 435 congregations, and there were not 15,000 Pres- 
 byterian communicants in the whole country. 
 
 The truth is, our denomination was then very 
 weak, and, though patriotic and because patriotic, 
 its churches came out of the Revolutionary War 
 in a sadly broken-up condition. The Rev. Mr. 
 Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, New York, wrote 
 Oct. 13, 1776 : 
 
 Patriotism op Presbyterians. 
 
 " Although civil liberty was the ostensible ob- 
 ject, the bait that was flung out to catch the 
 populace at large and engage them in the rebel- 
 lion, yet it is now past all doubt that an abolition 
 of the Church of England w^as one of the princi- 
 pal springs of the dissenting leaders' conduct; 
 and hence the unanimity of the dissenters in this 
 business. ... I have it from good authority that 
 the Presbyterian ministers, at a Synod where most 
 of them in the Middle Colonies were collected, 
 passed a resolve to support the Continental Con- 
 gress in all their measures. This, and this only, 
 can account for the uniformity of their conduct ; 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 103 
 
 for I do not know of one of them, nor have I been 
 able, after strict inquiry, to hear of any, who did 
 not, by preaching and every effort in their power, 
 promote all the measures of Congress, however 
 extravagant." {Documentary History of New York, 
 iii. pp. 1050, 1051 ; Hawkins, Historical Notices, pp. 
 328, 329.) 
 
 Such a tribute from one who was not a friend 
 may now be blazoned by us in letters of gold, the 
 more because of the suffering which their patriot- 
 ism brought upon the ministers and congregations 
 when it cost something to be patriotic. What that 
 suffering was is suggested by this paragraph from 
 Dr. George P. Hays' valuable and interesting vol- 
 ume, Presbyterians (pp. 115, 6): 
 
 " As might be expected, religion suffered greatly 
 during this preliminary period, as well as during 
 the progress of the war. The political excitement 
 and the military disturbance made regular church- 
 work almost impossible. Disorders of the finances 
 of the country made the support of the ministry 
 extremely difficult. Very many pastors betook 
 themselves to other callings, especially to agricul- 
 ture, for support. Many joined the army, either 
 as chaplains or, as not unfrequently happened, as 
 officers of companies made up in their own neigh- 
 borhood. Churches were often taken and turned 
 into stables or riding-schools. The church of 
 
]04 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Newtown had its steeple sawed off, and was finally 
 torn down and its sides used for soldiers' huts. 
 The church of Princeton was occupied by the 
 Hessian soldiers, a fireplace built in it, and the 
 pews and galleries used for fuel. More than fifty 
 places of worship throughout the land were ut- 
 terly destroyed by the enemy during the war. 
 Others were so defaced and injured that they were 
 unfit for use. Pastors in many cases were not 
 allowed to continue their ministry. Rodgers of 
 New York, Richards of Rah way, Prime of Hunt- 
 ingdon, and Mc Whorter of Carolina were forced 
 to flee for their lives. On many occasions the 
 soldiers destroyed what they could not carry 
 away, and the Presbyterian clergy were gener- 
 ally the special objects of vengeance." 
 
 Communicant Growth. 
 
 Of course, then, the membership of the churches 
 had been woefully depleted. But we desire to con- 
 fine ourself to certain and official figures, and 
 therefore we take the communicants when first re- 
 ported. In 1807 there were 18,781, or, adding, as 
 already explained, for non-reporting churches, 
 about 20,000. Now, they are 1,322,296. The 
 population of the whole country in 1807 was 
 about 6,600,000 (in 1800 it was 5,308,483, and in 
 1810, 7,239,881); now nearly 70,000,000. The in- 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 105 
 
 crease of population, therefore, in the last eighty- 
 eight years has been somewhat more than ten- 
 fold; that of the Presbyterian communicants 
 sixty-six-fold. 
 
 Here is a statement that will give a sharp idea 
 of the Presbyterian advance since the formation 
 of the Assembly : The city of Philadelphia had 
 in 1890 a little over a million inhabitants; the 
 population of the whole country a century before 
 was nearly four millions. Well, in Philadelphia 
 there were in 1890 in the congregations of our 
 National Presbyterian Church alone about twice 
 as many communicants (31,585) as there were in 
 1788 in the whole country. In the little space of 
 twenty miles by seven along the Delaware, with 
 its million people, twice as many communicants 
 as there were among the four millions of the 
 thirteen States which were just forming their Na- 
 tional Constitution ! 
 
 Old and New Schools. 
 
 When the Old and New School division took 
 place, in 1838, the strength of the Church was — 
 23 Synods, 135 Presbyteries, 2140 ministers, 280 
 licentiates, 244 candidates, 2815 congregations, 
 220,557 communicants. The first year of their 
 separation the Old School reported 1615 minis- 
 ters, 1673 churches, 6377 additions on confession, 
 
106 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 126,583 communicants; the New School, 1093 
 ministers, 1260 churches, 4691 additions on con- 
 fession, 106,000 communicants. The last year of 
 their separation (1869) the figures were — Old 
 School, 2381 ministers, 2740 churches, 15,189 ad- 
 ditions, 258,963 communicants ; New School, 1848 
 ministers, 1721 churches, 9707 additions, 172,560 
 communicants. The two came together in 1870 
 with 51 Synods, 259 Presbyteries, 4238 ministers, 
 338 licentiates, 541 candidates, 4526 churches, 
 446,561 communicants. The reconstruction of 
 the Synods and Presbyteries the next year gave 
 35 Synods and 167 Presbyteries. The population 
 of the country increased between 1838 and 1870 
 nearly two-and-a-half- fold (from about 16,000,000 
 in 1838 to 38,558,371 in 1870;) the communicants 
 a little more than doubled in the same period — 
 both branches, it will be remembered, having lost 
 by the Southern withdrawals. Between 1870 and 
 the present the population has advanced about 
 three-fourths; the communicants have much more 
 than doubled. 
 
 Benevolent Contributions. 
 
 The first year in which the benevolent contri- 
 butions were reported was 1798, when there were 
 247 ministers. The amount was §1397, an aver- 
 age of less than $6 to a pastorate. In 1807, the 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 107 
 
 first year in which the communicants were re- 
 ported, the amount was $4641, an average of 23 
 cents to a communicant. Last year the amount 
 was $4,140,446, an average of $3.13 per communi- 
 cant ; or sixty times as many communicants con- 
 tributed to benevolence eight hundred and ninety- 
 two times as much money. 
 
 Present Missionary Work. 
 
 Down to 1815 the annual expenditures for mis- 
 sions in the whole denomination rarely exceeded 
 $2500. Last year, through the eight benevolent 
 agencies by which the National General Assembly 
 directly works, it received $2,648,097 ; and, with 
 the amount, had at work in the home field 1731 
 missionaries ; 659 in the foreign field (with 1943 
 native agents, of whom 188 were ordained minis- 
 ters) ; 175 ministers and 257 teachers among the 
 freedmen ; 95 Sabbath-school missionaries ; as- 
 sisted 1032 young men in their studies prepara- 
 tory to the ministry ; aided in the erection of 182 
 church edifices and manses; supported 785 dis- 
 abled ministers or families of ministers ; and as- 
 sisted 35 institutions of learning which are strug- 
 gling into self-support under Presbyterian guid- 
 ance. What a contrast all this with the work 
 fourscore years ago ! The figures are a contrast — 
 not a comparison. 
 
108 
 
 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Home Missions. 
 
 It may be added, as suggesting the influence 
 which all this has upon individual souls for their 
 salvation, that the Board of Home Missions of the 
 National Church reports that of the 1,040,949 
 additions to the churches on profession from 1870 
 to 1894, 200,501 were to the churches receiving 
 aid from it — one-fifth of the whole number the 
 fruit of the labors of the struggling Home mis- 
 sionaries. Those missionaries, it may further be 
 added, are nearly one-fourth of all the ordained 
 ministers on our Presbyterial rolls — 1641 of the 
 whole ministerial force in non-self-supporting 
 churches and aided by the Church at large. Of 
 the 7496 churches on the roll, 3414 have been 
 organized since 1870 by Home missionaries. And 
 of 922,904 communicants this year reported in 
 the whole Church, 118,588, or more than one- 
 ninth, are in the churches now under the care 
 of the Board. It is interesting to note, further, 
 that the missionaries in the service last year were 
 distributed as follows among the States and Ter- 
 ritories : 
 
 Alabama 4 
 
 Alaska 8 
 
 Arizona 13 
 
 Arkansas 1 
 
 California 85 
 
 Colorado 70 
 
 Connecticut 2 
 
 Delaware 4 
 
 Florida 18 
 
 Idaho 24 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 
 
 109 
 
 Illinois 92 
 
 Indiana 90 
 
 Indian Territory .... 35 
 
 Iowa 106 
 
 Kansas 109 
 
 Kentucky 23 
 
 Maine 3 
 
 Maryland 7 
 
 Massachusetts 10 
 
 Michigan 92 
 
 Minnesota 96 
 
 Missouri 60 
 
 Montana 21 
 
 Nebraska 87 
 
 Nevada 2 
 
 New Hampshire 3 
 
 New Mexico 38 
 
 New York 139 
 
 North Carolina 3 
 
 North Dakota 51 
 
 Ohio 43 
 
 Oklahoma Territory ... 18 
 
 Oregon 45 
 
 Pennsylvania 28 
 
 Rhode Island 4 
 
 South Dakota 71 
 
 Tennessee 29 
 
 Texas 26 
 
 Utah 23 
 
 Vermont . 1 
 
 Washington 66 
 
 West Virginia 3 
 
 Wisconsin 72 
 
 Wyoming 6 
 
 The Home Board has also a special work among 
 the Alaskans, Indians, Mexicans, Mormons, Moun- 
 taineers of the South, employing therein 319 
 teachers in 114 schools with 9466 scholars. 
 
 Missions for Freedmen. 
 
 Not the least important — in some respects the 
 most pressing — work in the home field is that 
 among the freedmen. Last year the 175 ministers 
 and 257 teachers under the Assembly's Freed- 
 men's Board labored in 306 churches and mis- 
 sions, in which were 17,083 communicants, of 
 whom 1683 on examination and 356 on certificate 
 
110 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 were added last year, and 19,764 Sabbath-school 
 scholars. There were also 87 day-schools under 
 the care of the Board, with 257 teachers and 
 10,529 pupils. Two Synods and ten Presbyte- 
 ries are composed almost wholly of these colored 
 constituents of the Church. 
 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions has under its 
 care 25 missions in Africa, China, Guatemala, In- 
 dia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Persia, Siam, South 
 America, Syria, and among the Japanese and 
 Chinese in the United States ; the first of which, 
 that of Syria, was begun in 1823. In those mis- 
 sions are 116 stations and 583 out-stations, with 391 
 organized churches. In them are laboring 213 
 American ordained ministers, 56 physicians (37 
 male and 19 female), and 390 lay teachers — 659 
 in all — and 188 ordained natives, 230 native licen- 
 tiates, 1525 native teachers and helpers — 1943 na- 
 tives in all. There are 32,104 communicants in 
 the churches, of whom 3772 were added last year, 
 and who contributed last year ^65,828. There are 
 109 students for the ministry among them. In 
 their day- and boarding-schools are 30,452 pupils. 
 There are 33 hospitals and dispensaries in the 
 missions. That is the present foreign w^ork of 
 the one Assembly. 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE, 111 
 
 Missionary Communicants. 
 It is further very expressive of the prominent 
 numerical place which the missionary work holds 
 in the Church that more than one-fourth of the 
 additions on profession to the communion rolls 
 of the whole (National) Church last year (67,938) 
 were to its mission congregations — thus : 
 
 Home Mission 12.763 
 
 Freedmen 1,683 
 
 Foreign Mission 3,772 
 
 Total 18,218 
 
 And of the 922,904 on the present list of commu- 
 nicants, more than one-sixth are in those mission 
 congregations — thus : 
 
 Home Mission 118,588 
 
 Freedmen 17,083 
 
 Foreign Mission 32,104 
 
 167,775 
 
 Still further, the net increase of the communion 
 rolls by additions on profession was larger last 
 year in all these fields of mission work than in the 
 Church at large. In the whole Church it was 
 over one-thirteenth ; among the Freedmen it was 
 more than one-tenth ; in the Home Mission con- 
 gregations, more than one-ninth ; in the Foreign 
 Mission churches, more than one-eighth. The con- 
 
112 AMERICAN PRESBYTERTANISM. 
 
 verting work of the Spirit most powerful among 
 the heathen ! 
 
 Women's Societies. 
 
 The first Woman's Foreign Missionary Society 
 was organized in 1870 ; the amount raised the 
 first year was §7337. The Woman's Executive 
 Committee of Home Missions was organized in 
 1878 ; the amount raised the first year was $5296. 
 The amounts raised by all the women's organiza- 
 tions in the National Church last year, in connec- 
 tion with the Boards, was §640,461 — almost one- 
 third of the whole receipts for Home and Foreign 
 Missions and Freedmen. 
 
 Congregational Moneys. 
 
 The first year in which the sums raised for the 
 various congregational purposes were reported 
 was (in the Old School) in 1851 ; the total was 
 §1,056,023. The same columns now foot up in 
 all the churches §11,723,052. The Old School 
 membership in 1851 was 210,306. The average 
 was therefore a little over §5 per communicant ; 
 last year it was §8.86. 
 
 Additions. 
 
 The first year in which additions to the com- 
 munion rolls on profession were reported was 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 113 
 
 1820. The number was 8021. The total of 
 communicants was 72,096; the increase by pro- 
 fession was, therefore, nearly one-ninth. Last 
 year the additions were 98,110, with full rolls of 
 1,322,296, an increase of over one-twelfth. The 
 total population in 1820 was 9,633,822 ; one in 
 every 1200 of that population was that year 
 drawn to the communion roll ; last year, one in 
 every 712. 
 
 Infant Baptisms. 
 
 The infant baptisms in 1820, the first year they 
 were reported, were 8792 ; last year (the Cumber- 
 land not reported) they were 33,233. In 1820 
 they were one to 8 communicants ; last year one 
 to 34. In 1820, one in 1096 of the general popula- 
 tion were baptized in the Presbyterian Church ; 
 last year, one in 2160. Here is a regretful show- 
 ing. 
 
 Adult Baptisms. 
 
 The adult baptisms in 1820 were 1611; last 
 year, 30,760. That means that in 1820 four-fifths 
 of the additions on profession were of the bap- 
 tized children of the Church ; last year over two- 
 thirds were from the baptized children. In 1820 
 one-fifth of the converts were from the world; 
 last year, over one-third. 
 
 8 
 
114 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Sabbath-schools. 
 
 The first year in which Sabbath-schools were 
 embraced in the Statistical Tables was (in the Old 
 School) 1856 ; in the Old and New School both, in 
 1865. They were reported 276,355 in the schools, 
 while the combined communion rolls were 385,095. 
 Last year there were in the schools 1,263,831, with 
 a communicant membership in the churches of 
 1,322,296. The population of the country in 1865 
 was about 83,000,000 (in 1860, 31,433,321; in 
 1870, 38,558,371) : one in every 116 of the popula- 
 tion was in our Sabbath-schools ; now one in 55. 
 
 Colleges and Seminaries. 
 
 In 1788 there were two colleges and no theo- 
 logical seminary in connection with the Presby- 
 terian Church. Now there are 19 theological sem- 
 inaries. As to colleges, it is difficult to give exact 
 figures. We think we can count up 78 collegiate 
 institutions — male, female, or both — which are 
 directly controlled by Presbyterians. 
 
 The Statistical Tables. 
 
 The Statistical Tables from which the foregoing 
 figures have been gleaned are themselves a study 
 in our ecclesiastical development. At first, in 
 1788, all that they contain are ministers, licen- 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 115 
 
 tiates, vacant churches, and collections, the last 
 named then amounting in the whole Church to 
 £176 7s. lOd. Twenty years passed before the 
 number of communicants was recorded. Thirteen 
 years afterward additions on examination, infant 
 baptisms, and adult baptisms appear. The money 
 columns gradually divided, one after another the 
 different Boards being created — the last, that of 
 Aid for Colleges. The different Boards came into 
 existence in the following order and years : Home 
 Missions, 1816; Education, 1819; Foreign Mis- 
 sions, 1837 ; Publication, 1838 ; Church Erection, 
 1844 ; Ministerial Eelief, 1855 ; Freedmen, 1865 ; 
 Sabbath-school Work (of Publication), 1872 ; Aid 
 for Colleges, 1883. Not until 1851 were the con- 
 gregational moneys reported. It was only in 
 1856 that the record of Sabbath-schools began to 
 be made. 
 
 The Century's Additions and Contributions. 
 
 Let it be added here that the additions to the 
 churches on profession of faith since the organiza- 
 tion of the General Assembly have been almost 
 two millions (1,979,451), of which over eleven 
 hundred thousand have been since 1870 ; and 
 the benevolent contributions reported amount to 
 ninety-nine millions of dollars, of which eighty 
 millions have been since 1870. These figures do 
 
116 AMERICAN PRESBYTEBIANISM. 
 
 not include the Southern and Cumberland re- 
 ports : we cannot put our hand upon them. If they 
 were included, as they should be for full national 
 statements, they would present a total that would 
 be astonishing to Presbyterians generally. The 
 figures of the Southern Church would add not less 
 than six million dollars to the amount since 1870, 
 and make the total since 1788 at least one hundred 
 and five millions, and more than two hundred 
 thousand to the receptions on profession of faith. 
 
 Decrease of Contributions. 
 
 Here, however, candor must admit there is a fly 
 in the ointment. Of recent years there has been 
 no such advance in the money columns as could 
 properly have been looked for. There has even 
 been a decrease. Last year, as compared with 
 1890, shows an absolute falling off in the contri- 
 butions of $720,552 ; in the benevolent columns, 
 of $649,071, and in the congregational and Gen- 
 eral Assembly columns, of $71,481, though the com- 
 municant membership has grown from 775,903 to 
 922,904 — an increase of nearly one-fourth. Cast- 
 ing the eye back to the era of the reunion, while 
 the view is not so unfavorable, it is still not as 
 bright as the preceding periods. The total money 
 columns in 1871 were 9,622,030; the communi- 
 cants were then 455,378; they are now 922,904. 
 
NUMERICAL INCREASE. 117 
 
 Without any development in the grace of liber- 
 ality the same proportionate giving simply would 
 have raised the columns last year to at least 
 $19,000,000, whereas they are only $13,647,579. 
 If it be said that the reunion memorial offerings 
 had begun to be reported in 1871, the year before 
 446,561 communicants contributed $8,440,121 ; an 
 equal per capita would have made the amount 
 this year more than $17,000,000. It points this 
 the more to note that while in the National 
 Church the total contributions fell from 
 $14,368,131 in 1890 to $13,647,579 in 1895, in 
 the Southern Church they rose from $1,727,263 in 
 1890 to $1,880,126 in 1895, and in 1893, before 
 the present financial depression was felt, were 
 $1,943,580. 
 
VI. 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 
 
 The foregoing figures, the more carefully they 
 are examined, the greater the impression they 
 make. We indicate briefly some of the leading 
 lessons they suggest: 
 
 Moral and Social Development. 
 
 1. There is one important element in our Na- 
 tional Church life on which they do not directly 
 throw light, though a great deal may be reflected 
 from them : the moral and social development of 
 the members of the Church and their moral and 
 social influence on the nation at large. But from 
 a somewhat careful reading of the life of a hun- 
 dred years ago and since down to the present, we 
 do not hesitate to express the opinion that the 
 type of piety and morality has constantly been 
 advancing in the Church, and that it is to-day 
 far higher than it was a century ago. The piety 
 is doubtless more active and practical than pas- 
 sive and contemplative. It may not be so spir- 
 itual: it is of a higher moral tone in general. 
 Practices were permitted a hundred years ago that 
 would not be tolerated now. All along the cen- 
 
 118 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 119 
 
 tury there has been elevation in individual and 
 public life. As far as the Deliverances of the ju- 
 dicatories on moral and social questions are con- 
 cerned, this is especially true ; and these are both 
 the indication of the beliefs of the Church and 
 educational of them. We claim that on no ques- 
 tion that has arisen are we under the necessity of 
 covering up the nakedness of our ecclesiastical 
 ancestors with backward steps. As one instance 
 of this, the Deliverances of the Assemblies from 
 the beginning on the subject of Temperance may 
 be specially referred to. Miss Willard was re- 
 ported some time ago as saying that on this reform 
 the Presbyterian Church, though slow in moving, 
 was sure and mighty and effectual when she did 
 move. The latter part of the statement is true; 
 the first is not correct. Our Church has not been 
 slow in taking her stand. She has been in the 
 van of the whole Temperance movement. She 
 has led, not been led. And she has done as much 
 as any other organization to form that public sen- 
 timent which is now condensed into the expres- 
 sion that total abstinence from all intoxicants is 
 the duty of the individual — prohibition of the 
 trafiic in them the duty of the State. 
 
 Educational. 
 2. Neither do the figures concerning theological 
 
120 AMERICAN PRE8BYTERIANISM. 
 
 seminaries and colleges suggest all that is true of 
 the educational and intellectual position of our 
 Church. In its early history nearly every pastor 
 was a day teacher as well ; his home was a school. 
 Insisting upon a learned ministry, the Church has 
 constantly been educating and elevating her peo- 
 ple. The schools of all grades that are under her 
 influence cannot be tabulated. Through her gen- 
 eral educational and ministerial work she has 
 held all along, she holds to-day, a greater proportion 
 of the solid educational people of the land than 
 any other organization. Beyond controversy, the 
 Presbyterian Church, in the intellectual power of 
 her ministry, in the influence of the educators and 
 institutions that are managed by her ministers 
 and members, in the general intelligence of her 
 adherents, and now in the kind of work she is 
 doing through her Sabbath-schools, stands easily 
 in the van of the denominations. 
 
 Active and Benevolent Work. 
 
 3. It is when we approach the active and be- 
 nevolent work that the figures speak with the 
 most telling effect. The advance of the Church 
 on herself has been marvellous: in comparison 
 with others it is equally suggestive. The simple 
 fact is, that, absolutely and relatively, Presbyte- 
 rians stand far in advance of any other denomi- 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS 121 
 
 nation. They raise more than any other. About 
 half of all the moneys raised by all the churches 
 of the land for benevolent work is raised by them. 
 They do not yet give one-tenth of their income 
 to the Lord, but they give to benevolent objects 
 more than one-third of the amount that they raise 
 for their own congregational purposes, which may 
 be regarded, in a pure sense of the word, as selfish 
 purposes. This suggests either that the grace of 
 liberality has been under our system exceptionally 
 developed, or that our churches have a solid and 
 wealthy membership. We believe both to be the 
 case. The Boards and Committees as they have 
 grown up, and as they have been managed, and 
 especially the training in systematic beneficence 
 which is now a part of the system, have evoked a 
 liberality which is exceptional among the churches. 
 It is not yet what it ought to be : it is reaching on. 
 
 Relative Numerical Growth. 
 
 4. Numerically, the Presbyterian development 
 has been in advance of all other denominations 
 except two. It stands third in the census tables 
 for the whole country for 1890. 
 
 Again, We make no comparison with Eoman 
 Catholics. They claim 6,257,871 " communicants." 
 But this includes all the population above nine 
 years of age which the priests can in any way 
 
122 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 identify with their Church ; and it is not a tabu- 
 lation from precise lists, but is made up of esti- 
 mates and guesses. The Presbyterian population 
 is larger than the Papal. In the numbers of con- 
 gregations and of church buildings and their 
 seating capacity the census shows the latter to be 
 behind. And the growth which it has had has 
 been almost wholly from immigration, much of 
 which it has also heavily lost. 
 
 Two Sister Denominations. 
 
 5. In this respect, however, it has been admitted 
 that there are two denominations, the Baptist and 
 the Methodist, that have greatly outstripped the 
 Presbyterian. The Baptists started in the coun- 
 try as soon as the Presbyterians, but the Meth- 
 odists were behind both. In 1890, however, 
 the Baptists of all branches numbered 3,712,468 
 communicants; the Methodists, 4,589,284; while 
 the Presbyterians and Reformed of all branches 
 were 1,587,190. 
 
 The Baptists. 
 
 A careful examination of the census reports 
 will, however, make some revelations concerning 
 these figures which will be a surprise to many. 
 
 There are thirteen branches of Baptists. Of 
 these, the Regular Baptists South, who are found 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 123 
 
 only in the Southern States and Territories (ex- 
 cept 273 in Kansas), number 1,280,056 communi- 
 cants ; the Regular Baptists, colored, also confined 
 wholly to the Southern States, are 1,348,939. The 
 following are also wholly or almost wholly in the 
 South: The Original Free-will, 11,864; the Gen- 
 eral, 21,362; the United, 13,209; the Baptist 
 Church of Christ, 8254 ; the Primitive, 116,271 ; 
 the Old Two-seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian, 
 12,881. The Regular Baptists, North, who are 
 restricted to the North, have 800,025 ; and the fol- 
 lowing are divided between the North and the 
 South: the Six-Principle Baptists, 937; the 
 Seventh-Day Baptists, 9143; the Free-will Bap- 
 tists, 87,898; the Separate Baptists, 1599. 
 
 Over 2,800,000 of the Baptists of all the 
 branches are in the South ; less than 900,000 are 
 in the Northern States ; so that in the North they 
 are numerically weaker than the Presbyterians. 
 The immense preponderance of their strength is 
 in the South, and there their colored congrega- 
 tions largely outnumber all others. 
 
 The Methodists. 
 
 Our Methodist brethren exhibit a somewhat 
 similar state of things. There are seventeen 
 branches of them, between whom, as we under- 
 stand, no ecclesiastical fraternal relations exist. 
 
124 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANTSM. 
 
 The total communicants are 4,589,284, divided as 
 follows: Methodist Episcopal (North), 2,240,354; 
 Union American Methodist Episcopal (colored), 
 2279 ; African Methodist Episcopal (colored), 
 452,725; African Union Methodist Protestant 
 (colored), 3415 ; African Methodist Episcopal 
 Zion (colored), 349,788; Methodist Protestant, 
 141,989; Wesleyan Connexion of America, 
 16,492; Methodist Episcopal, South, 1,209,976; 
 Congregational Methodist, 8705; Congregational 
 Methodist Colored, 319; New Congregational 
 Methodist, 1059 ; Colored Methodist Episcopal, 
 129,383; Zion Union Apostolic (colored), 2346; 
 Primitive Methodist, 4764; Free Methodist, 
 22,110; Independent Methodists, 2569; Evangel- 
 ical Missionary Church, 951. 
 
 Seven of these organizations, it will be noticed, are 
 composed exclusively of colored members, and they 
 number nearly a million. There are also colored 
 members in the other organizations : in the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal North, for instance, whole conferences 
 of them overlapping the white conferences. 
 
 Then of the total of 4,589,284 communicants, 
 over 2,500,000 are in the South, leaving a little 
 less than two millions in all the branches in the 
 North, of whom about 1,750,000 are in the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church North, so called. We 
 may add that the Northern branch is also 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 125 
 
 strong in the South, having almost 500,000 com- 
 municants there. On the other hand, the Southern 
 Church has in the Northern States a considerable 
 following, amounting to nearly 26,000. 
 
 Thus it appears that the Baptists and the 
 Methodists alike have the preponderance of their 
 numerical strength in the South, and that the 
 colored people North and South are very largely 
 in their communion. The Presbyterians and 
 Reformed, however, with the exception of the 
 Southern Presbyterian Church and the Cumber- 
 land, have their preponderance in the North, and 
 they are not numerically strong among the colored 
 people. And in the North the Presbyterians and 
 the Reformed are stronger than the Baptists : the 
 Methodists are not so much more numerous as is 
 commonly supposed from the figures en bloc, with- 
 out an analysis of them. 
 
 Our Methodist and Baptist brethren, let it be 
 mentioned to their credit, have had their tremen- 
 dous success among the poor. They have gone 
 ahead of Presbyterians in frontier settlements, in 
 new regions, in the tenement-houses and alleys of 
 the large cities, among the negroes in the South 
 and the North. It is, we repeat, to their credit that 
 they have so largely reached the poor, the igno- 
 rant, and the degraded. But we should not let 
 them have this as an exclusive honor, for Christi- 
 
126 AMERICAN PRESS YTEBIANISM. 
 
 anity should reach all classes. " To the poor the 
 gospel is preached :" we must preach it to them if 
 we want the best of all seals stamped upon our 
 Church. 
 
 Let us cultivate our wealth, and rejoice in our 
 refinement, and make much of our education ; but 
 let us show more and more that Presbyterianism 
 is not a class, but an all-classes, religion. 
 
 And why have we not in this respect had the 
 numerical success that has rested upon our Meth- 
 odist and Baptist brethren ? 
 
 We are inclined to think we have been pushing 
 to an extreme our favorite doctrine of an educated 
 ministry ; been insisting too much upon the same 
 high education for all preachers ; have not been 
 willing enough to use graces without gifts among 
 the masses ; and in waiting for the high education 
 have let many of the population get beyond us. 
 We are sure we have not used the multiform gifts 
 of our eldership in the profitable way in which we 
 should have done. We would emphasize what, since 
 writing the foregoing, we have noticed Dr. W. H. 
 Roberts said in his Pittsburg Quarter-century 
 Anniversary address: 
 
 " There must be concerted effort for the system- 
 atic use of the ministry of gifts as distinct from 
 the ministry of office. The New Testament clearly 
 teaches that the possession of talents by disciples 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 127 
 
 of Christ implies, necessarily, not official relation 
 to the Church, but the use of such talents in the 
 Lord's work according to opportunity. God has 
 blessed many ruling elders and other members of 
 the laity, both men and women, with abilities for 
 service in various lines in his kingdom." 
 
 Revivals and Culture. 
 
 6. A careful examination from decade to de- 
 cade will show that the growth of the Church in 
 membership has been of a steady and solid kind. 
 This is due largely to the way in which it has 
 cultivated revivals. It has shared richly in the 
 fruits of those widespread awakenings which at 
 different times have shaken the whole country or 
 large sections of it. It has had many special ones 
 in its own congregations. Mention of powerful 
 works of grace is frequently found in its annual 
 Narratives of the State of Religion. But a sen- 
 tence in a Pastoral Letter in 1816 expresses the 
 predominant feeling of a very large proportion of 
 the body : " If the thunderstorm in summer ex- 
 cites the most attention, it is the continued bless- 
 ing from the clouds which replenishes the spring 
 and makes glad the harvest of the husbandman." 
 The General Assembly of 1817, in passing a quasi 
 censure on this utterance, expressed the hope that 
 it was not intended as a condemnation of revivals. 
 
328 AMERICAN PRESBYTEBIANISM, 
 
 The intention was probably to censure some re- 
 vival measures. But it will be found that, in this 
 solid, and substantial, and constantly advancing 
 portion of the Church of Christ, it has been the 
 happy blending of revivals and awakenings with 
 the weekly and ordinary culture of the field that 
 has been the means of adding to the reports of 
 conversions, and in holding on to, and effectively 
 training, those who have been drawn into the 
 ranks of communicants. 
 
 Devotion to Civil and Religious Liberty. 
 
 7. The unflinching and unbroken American 
 position of the Presbyterian Church has been an 
 important source of her strength and growth here. 
 In that she was a leader. Her ante-Revolution- 
 ary and official position places her first ; for as far 
 back as 1729 the General Synod which passed 
 what is called the Adopting Act. by which it was 
 agreed "that all the ministers of this Synod, or 
 that shall hereafter be admitted into this Synod, 
 shall declare their agreement in approbation of 
 the Confession of Faith, with the Larger and 
 Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at 
 Westminster," and "also adopt the said Confes- 
 sion as the confession of our faith" — the first 
 authoritative settlement of the Standards of the 
 Church — "in the same year took action in the 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 129 
 
 line of the denial of the authority of the State 
 over the Church. Chapter xxiii. of the Westmin- 
 ster Confession of Faith deals with the power of 
 the civil magistrate, and the Synod denied to the 
 civil magistrate what the Westminster Assembly 
 permitted — a controlling power over Synods with 
 respect to ' the exercise of their ministerial au- 
 thority.' It also denied to the civil magistrate the 
 ^ power to persecute any for their religion.' These 
 were notable acts on the part of the Synod, ap- 
 pearing to be the first declaration, b}'' an organized 
 Church on American soil, of the freedom of the 
 Church from control by the State. Even in New 
 England at this time Church and State were 
 united. Congregationalism, as first established in 
 the colonies, was a chain whose links were steel. 
 An organization of so-called independent churches, 
 its ministers were held to orthodoxy and its mem- 
 bers to right living by the strong arm of the civil 
 law. It was the civil magistrate at the call of the 
 Church who drove out from Massachusetts, Wil- 
 liams the Baptist and Doughty the Presbyte- 
 rian. To the Presbyterian rather than to the 
 Puritan must the honor be given of the first 
 definite statement, by an organized body on 
 American soil, of what to-day is recognized as the 
 distinctively American and true doctrine of the 
 right relation between Church and State." 
 
 9 
 
130 AMERICAN PRESBYTERTANISM. 
 
 Placing herself right so early on that funda- 
 mental question, later in the times that tried 
 men's souls she and her adherents were on fire 
 with patriotism. Her Revolutionary record has 
 not the slightest smirch upon it. Opponents 
 themselves being judges, she stands the most un- 
 qualified advocate of the political principles which 
 permeate the American nation. None of her min- 
 isters deserted our country in Revolutionary days ; 
 none of them prayed or fought for the British 
 cause. They were all active patriots. Their ec- 
 clesiastical constitution contained the seed of the 
 Federal. And their record in maintenance of 
 civil and religious freedom is untarnished. " In- 
 dependents in New England and Episcopalians 
 in the Middle colonies did deny to others the free- 
 dom they claimed for themselves ; Presbyterians, 
 however, whether of British, Scotch, Irish, or Con- 
 tinental origin, never assailed the rights of their 
 fellow-men. Holding strenuously to the truth 
 that 'God alone is Lord of the conscience,' they 
 protected the doctrine they professed. And none 
 have been more persistent in maintaining true 
 liberty in Church and in State, none have been 
 more thoroughly Presbyterian in doctrine and 
 practice, than the men of that race whose tradi- 
 tions cluster about the siege of Londonderry and 
 the conventicles of the Covenanters. To them 
 
LESSONS FROM THE COMPARISONS. 131 
 
 American Presbyterianism is largely indebted for 
 its vigor, tenacity, and prosperity" (Dr. W. H. 
 Roberts's Sketch of the History of the Presbyterian 
 Church, p. 7). And to its Presbyterianism this 
 nation is largely indebted for the securement and 
 preservation of its civil and religious freedom ; 
 and that has in turn given Presbyterianism a 
 warm place in the affections of Americans. 
 
 The Divine Message. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that the design of the 
 foregoing statements is to make the impression 
 that the Presbyterian Church has accomplished 
 all that it should have done, or reached the posi- 
 tion that it should occupy, or exhibited the faith- 
 fulness that should characterize it ; or to cause it 
 to indulge in boastfulness or self-glorification, and 
 in depreciation of its sister churches. God forbid ! 
 It has not yet reached the mark, nor does it look 
 with envious or jealous eye on the other churches 
 of the land. It bids them God-speed in the one 
 work of the glorified Redeemer. They and it all 
 need to be stimulated to increasing efforts against 
 the common enemies and in the advancement of 
 the one kingdom. And one way in which to ap- 
 ply that stimulus is to award due credit to what 
 has been done and to magnify the divine grace in 
 it. Of the two, optimism is more effective than 
 
132 AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 pessimism. Truest success is reached through the 
 happy mean between them. And as we have 
 shown, in this little volume, the remarkable 
 growth with which God has blessed Presbyterians 
 in the whole United States — and, more concen- 
 trated still, in Pennsylvania, and especially in 
 Philadelphia, which is a striking microcosm of 
 both State and nation, and of what both are to be 
 more and more in the future — we think this mes- 
 sage has a pointed and special application to the 
 Church in them all : 
 
 " These things saith he that is holy, he that is 
 true, he that hath the key of David, he that open- 
 eth and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no 
 man openeth. 
 
 " I know thy works. Behold, I have set before 
 thee an open door, and no man can shut it ; for 
 thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, 
 and hast not denied my name. Behold, I will 
 make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say 
 they are Jews and are not, but do lie; behold, I 
 will make them to come and worship before my 
 feet and to know that I have loved thee. Because 
 thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will 
 keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall 
 come upon all the world, to try them that dwell 
 upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly. Hold 
 that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crownr 
 
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