706 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



Assembly's fund, $679; salaries of pastors, 

 $258,000; other funds about $180,000; the 

 whole amount contributed for all purposes, as 

 far as reported, being over $500,000. The Gen- 

 eral Assembly made appropriations to the va- 

 rious Boards of the Church, to carry on their 

 operations during the coming year, the sum of 

 $177,400, divided as follows: foreign missions, 

 $86,800 ; home missions, $33,000 ; freedmen's 

 missions, 2,200; church extension, $20,000; 

 education, $10,000; publication, $5,000; As- 

 sembly's fund, $600. 



The thirty-fifth session of the General Assem- 

 bly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 

 met at Evansville, Ind., and elected the Rev. 

 Mr. Douglas, of Tennessee, moderator. The 

 Assembly adopted resolutions expressing their 

 abhorrence of the assassination of President 

 Lincoln. The. views expressed by the former 

 General Assemblies on slavery and loyalty were 

 confirmed. Of the presbyteries within the 

 bounds of the late Confederate States, only 

 those constituting the Synod of East Tennessee 

 were present. In November, a convention of 

 Cumberland Presbyterians, consisting chiefly 

 of members of the Southern presbyteries, was 

 held at Memphis, to express their views on 

 the unity of the Church, and on the views of 

 the last General Assembly. In accordance 

 with the spirit generally pervading the South- 

 ern Churches, it was resolved that " the whole 

 proceedings of the Assemblies of 1863 and 1864, 

 touching slavery and the state of the country, 

 and so far as the same were endorsed by the 

 Assembly of 1865, were extra-ecclesiastical, and 

 therefore entirely nugatory ; " that in their 

 charges of sin upon the Southern people, " they 

 condemn " what God does not condemn, "and 

 in laying down terms of communion which the 

 Bible does not lay down, they exalt themselves 

 above, and assume to be more holy than God." 

 At the same time, however, the Convention 

 expressed gratification at the continuing unity 

 of the Church, at the existence of a large con- 

 servative element in the northern portion of 

 it, and recommended to the presbyteries to 

 send up their full quota of commissioners to 

 the next General Assembly. 



The Presbyterians of the late Confederate 

 States were almost unanimous in favor of con- 

 tinuing a separate ecclesiastical organization. 

 The Presbytery of New Orleans, which, after 

 the capture of that city, severed its connection 

 with the General Assembly of the Southern 

 Churches, reunited itself with that body only 

 the Synod of North Carolina, which was in ses- 

 sion toward the close of October at Fayette- 

 ville, was unable to agree upon any resolutions 

 concerning reunion, and tabled resolutions con- 

 demning the spirit of the Northern churches. 



The General Assembly of the Southern Pres- 

 byterians met in December at Macon, and 

 elected the Rev. Dr. George Howe, of Colum- 

 bia, moderator. The Assembly adopted, for the 

 name of their Church, the General Assembly 

 of the Presbyterian Church in the United 



States. "With regard to the relation to North- 

 ern Presbyterians, the General Assembly passed 

 the following resolutions : 



Besolved, That our ministers and churches be and 

 hereby are warned against all ministers or other agents 

 who may come among us to sow the seeds of division 

 and strife in the congregations or to create schism in 

 our beloved Zion ; and owing to the peculiar reasons 

 for prudence which now exist, we enjoin it upon our 

 ministers and sessions to exercise special caution as 

 to whom they admit to their pulpits, and in cases of 

 doubt to refer to the judgment of the presbyteries 

 the whole question of the nature and extent of the 

 courtesy or countenance they may extend. 



Jtesolved, That the Assembly would remind ses- 

 sions that in no case is it proper for them to invite 

 ministers of other denominations statedly to occupy 

 any of our pulpits without the consent of the pres- 

 byteries, and the known purpose of such ministers, 

 at the earliest suitable opportunity, to unite with us 

 in ecclesiastical relations. 



The following testimony concerning slavery 

 was adopted : 



This relation is now overthrown suddenly, vio- 

 lently whether justly or unjustly, in wrath or in 

 mercy, for weal or for woe, let history and the 

 Judge of all the earth decide. But there are two 

 considerations of vital interest which still remain. 



One is, that while the existence of slavery may, in 

 its civil aspects, be regarded as a civil question, an 

 issue now gone, yet the lawfulness of the relation as 

 a question of social morality and of Scriptural truth 

 has lost nothing of its importance. When we 

 solemnly declare to you, brethren, that the dogma 

 which asserts the inherent sinfulness of this relation 

 is unscriptural and fanatical : that it is condemned, 

 not only by the Word of God, but by the voice of 

 the Church in all ages ; that it is one of the most 

 pernicious heresies of modern times ; that its coinf- 

 tenance by nny Church is a just cause of separation 

 from it (1 Tim. vi. 1-5), we have surely said enough 

 to warn you away from this insidious error as from a 

 fatal shore. 



Whatever, therefore, we may have to lament be- 

 fore God, either for neglect of duty toward our ser- 

 vants, or for actual wrong while the relation lasted, 

 we are not called, now that it has been abolished, to 

 bow the head in humiliation before men, or to ad- 

 mit that the memory of many of our dear kindred is 

 to be covered with shame, because, like Abraham, 

 Isaac, and Jacob, they had bond-servants born in 

 their own houses, or bought with their money, and 

 who now, redeemed by the same precious blood, sit 

 down together in the kingdom of God. 



The report of the Standing Committee on 

 Domestic Missions, specially referred to the du- 

 ties of the Church toward the negroes. It re- 

 minded the Church that this always important 

 branch of Christian labor "has within the last 

 twelve months assumed a magnitude and an 

 urgency which requires a large and instant in- 

 crease of zeal ;" that " while the change in the 

 legal and domestic relations of the colored 

 people does not release the Church from its ob- 

 ligation to seek their moral and spiritual 

 welfare, their greater exposure to temptation, 

 leading to vice, irreligion, and ruin, both tem- 

 poral and eternal, which result from that change, 

 makes the strongest appeal to our Christian 

 sympathies." 



This subject of the religious culture of the 

 blacks was further enforced by the adoption 

 of a report from the Committee on Bills and 

 Overtures. The inquiry of the Overture being 



