CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



147 



Egbert 0. Smyth, D. D., William J. Tucker, 

 John W. Churchill, George Harris, and Edward 

 Z. Hincks, all holding positions as instructors 

 in the institution, of holding and teaching the 

 doctrine mentioned. A preliminary hearing 

 was granted by the Board of Visitors, Oct. 25, 

 1886, when an amended complaint was pre- 

 sented, setting forth four charges, with many 

 specifications, upon which a trial was held dur- 

 ing the last days of the year. In their decis- 

 ion, as announced in June, the board declared 

 that they had found that Prof. Smyth, as pro- 

 fessor, maintained and inculcated beliefs incon- 

 sistent with and repugnant to the creed of the 

 institution and its statutes, in the following 

 particulars, as charged in the amended com- 

 plaint, viz. : 



That the Bible is not " the only perfect rule of faith 

 and practice, but is fallible and untrustworthy, even 

 in some of its religious teachings. 



"That no man has power or capacity to repent 

 without knowledge of God in Christ. 



u That there is and will be probation after death for 

 all men who do not decisively reject Christ during the 

 earthly life." 



The board, therefore, "adjudged and de- 

 creed that Prof. Smyth be removed from his 

 position, and that the office be declared va- 

 cant." In the case of Profs. Tucker, Churchill, 

 Harris, and Hincks, the Rev. Mr. Eustis, a 

 member of the board, declined to act with his 

 associates, upon the ground that he was not 

 present on the day of the hearing of the com- 

 plaints, when the respondents severally ap- 

 peared and made their statements in defense. 

 Thereupon, the complaints as amended being 

 taken up and severally considered, none of the 

 charges contained in them were sustained. 

 The Board of Visitors at the same meeting re- 

 fused to approve of the election of the Rev. 

 Frank E. Woodruff to the Associate Professor- 

 ship of Sacred Literature in the Theological 

 Seminary. Upon the announcement of the 

 decision, the Board of Trustees of the Semi- 

 nary expressed regret : 



That the charges made against the professors were 

 not prosecuted before the Board of Trustees, and de- 

 nied the authority and jurisdiction of the Board of 

 Visitors, asserting that the latter had only appellate 

 power, and that the case should have been prosecuted 

 before the trustees in the first instance. 



They regretted all the more that this case was first 

 prosecuted before the Visitors, because the matter had 

 previously been brought to the attention of this board 

 in a memorial presented by one of the Trustees, Jan. 

 12, 1836, referring to public reports and charges against 

 the. profer-sors, and praying that, the Board of Trustees 

 would request the Board of Visitors to investigate the 

 samu. This the Board of Trustees declined to do, on 

 the ground that if sufficient cause to consider them 

 existed, it was the duty of this board to investigate 

 the charges before they should go to the Board of 

 Visitors. 



In further regret, the circular continued : 



That when proceedings had been initiated before 

 the Visitors all effort of this board to secure a stand- 

 ing at the hearing failed. We felt that as a Board of 

 Trust'- v charged with the administration of 



the seminary. \ve should have been recognized as a 

 party in :t trial which involved the best interests of 

 the institution intrusted to our care. 



The Trustees had carefully weighed all the 

 evidence presented at the trial, and with all 

 the other light they could gain, had come to 

 the conclusion that the charges were not sus- 

 tained, saying that 



In our opinion the teachings of the professors ac- 

 cused are either not correctly reported, or, when cor- 

 rectly represented, are not inconsistent with the creed 

 which the professors have signed and are bound to 

 sustain in all their utterances. ... In our judgment 

 the whole aim of the professors has been to enlarge 

 and deepen the apprehension of Christian truth in its 

 application to the problems of faith and the work of 

 the Church in the world, and they have done this 

 along the lines of the symbols of the seminary. 'And 

 we think that they deserve for their industry, their 

 zeal, their scholarship, and their piety, not the dis- 

 franchi&ement and suspicion of the friends of the 

 seminary, and of sacred learning, but encouragement 

 and sympathy. In conclusion ? we can not refrain 

 from expressing our deep conviction that no greater 

 mistake can be made in endeavoring to promote the 

 growth of Christ's kingdom than that of insisting that 

 such differences on points in cschatology as exist be- 

 tween the accusers and the accused in this case should 

 be made the occasion of accusations so grave, and a trial 

 so momentous as that which these distinguished and 

 high-minded professors have been called upon to face. 



Professor Smyth, through his counsel, on the 

 1st day of November, entered an appeal in the 

 Supreme Court of Essex County, Mass., against 

 the finding of the Board of Visitors, to which 

 it was agreed that the answer of the board 

 should be filed by December 1. The appeal 

 under the statute founding the seminary has to 

 be argued before the full bench of the court 

 sitting at law. 



The American Board, The American Board of 

 Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the oldest 

 of American foreign missionary societies, is a 

 close corporation, consisting at present of about 

 200 corporate members, all of whom derive 

 their right and title as such from the nine com- 

 missioners who were designated in the original 

 act of incorporation by the Legislature of Mas- 

 sachusetts. As the area of the churches con- 

 tributing to sustain the work of the board in- 

 creased, additional members were voted in so 

 as to give the new contributors representation. 

 These corporate members constitute the body 

 who transact the business and decide upon all 

 questions at the annual meetings of the board, 

 while honorary members and members by vir- 

 tue of their contributions take part in the dis- 

 cussions, but do not vote. The Prudential 

 Committee, to whom the management of affairs 

 and the control of its policy is committed dur- 

 ing the intervals between the annuaV meetings 

 of the board, consists of five clergymen and 

 five laymen living in Boston or its vicinity, 

 and meets weekly. The three secretaries and 

 the treasurer, who are elected by the board, 

 are not members of this committee, but attend 

 its meetings. 



The seventy-eighth annual meeting of the 

 Board was held in Springfield, Mass., beginning 

 October 4. The President, the Rev. Mark Hop- 

 kins, D. D., having died since the last meeting 

 of the board, Mr. E. W. Blatchford, Vice-Presi- 

 dent, presided. The ordinary receipts for the 



