England." (Laws of Virginia, ed. 1769, p. 3.) The field was certainly not promising for Presbyterian missionaries.

About 1730, a Scotch schoolmaster gathered a congregation between the Rappahannoc and Potomac rivers, and read to them the Scriptures and such sermons as he had; and in 1738 we find their delegates seeking supplies from the Synod of Philadelphia, which were granted, and Mr. Anderson, formerly pastor of the church in New York, was sent. (Hodge, Part II, 259.) Boston's Fourfold State, and a copy of Luther on Galatians, fell into the hands of two wealthy planters and resulted in their conversion. of them, a Mr. Samuel Morris, has written a somewhat minute. account of this work in a letter to Mr. Davies, which he copied in a letter to Dr. Bellamy, and is to be seen in the second volume of Gillies' Historical Collections. Mr. Morris invited his neighbors to his house, and read Luther's words to them. His audience increased at such a rate that it became necessary to erect a house for their meetings. He was sent for to read these words in other neighborhoods. So utterly ignorant were they of any church names save those assumed by the establishment and the Quakers, that when prosecuted, they were obliged to consult concerning their name, and as Luther's book was the visible means of their present views, they called themselves Lutherans. They were repeatedly fined, and yet "Morris's Meeting House" was crowded. At last, after three years, they heard of a preacher, whose doctrine was like that they had read in Luther, aud two messengers were sent in great haste to ask him to preach these words to them. The long journey was like to end in disappointment, for Mr. Robinson, sent out by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, had left. They followed him a hundred miles, and secured his services. The delight and animation of these men on first hearing a living preacher like him of Wittemberg, are too well told by Mr. Morris to be omitted. It was from Luke 13: 3, that Mr. Robinson addressed them.

"It is hard," says Mr. M., "for the liveliest imagination to form an image of the condition of the assembly on these glorious days of the Son of man. Such of us as had been hungering for the word before, were lost in agreeable surprise and astonishment, and some could not refrain from publicly declaring their transport. We were overwhelmed with the thoughts of the unexpected goodness of God in allowing us to hear the gospel preached in a manner that surpassed our hopes. Many that came through curiosity were pricked to the heart, and but few in the numerous assemblies on those four days appeared unaffected. They returned, alarmed with apprehensions of their dangerous condition, convinced of their former entire ignorance of religion, and anxiously inquiring what they should do to be saved. And there is reason to believe there was as much good done by these four sermons, as by all the sermons preached in these parts before or since."

Persecution sought to check the work, but in vain. The place was visited by the Rev. John Blair, and so affected were the people by his preaching that, on one occasion, "a whole house full was quite overcome by the power of the word, particularly one pungent sentence, and they could hardly sit or stand, or keep their passions under any proper restraint." The Synod of New York prosecuted this mission, mostly by sending settled pastors, such as William Tennent of Freehold, Samuel Finley, Samuel Blair and others; and the revival under their labors, and subsequently under those of President Davies, extended to many parts of the state and even as far as North Carolina and Kentucky. (Log College, p. 298.) The history of that work, as given by Mr. Morris and Mr. Davies is highly edifying, and the venerable Dr. Alexander of Princeton, tells us that he met with numerous Christians, half a century after Davies had left the field, who were awakened in that revival under his labors. And yet that great man, with true Christian modesty, speaks of the results of his preaching in a letter to Dr. Bellamy, as of "a considerable number of perishing sinners being gained to the blessed Redeemer." (Hodge, Part II, p. 47.)

It was under these circumstances that Presbyterianism took its rise in Virginia, for Morris's Lutherans changed their name to that of Presbyterians after Mr. Robinson's visit. An imperfect copy of that severely Calvinistic "Four-fold State," and "Luther on the Galatians" were the visible instrumentalities. And it is a fact worth recording that in 1748, after a number of churches were formed of this order, and when there were "a hundred dissenters to where a few years ago there were not ten," Mr. Rodgers, afterward the pastor of the church in New York, "was forbidden in the most peremptory manner, to preach within the colony, under the penalty of a fine of five hundred pounds, and a year's imprisonment, without bail or main-prize." (Life of Rodgers, p. 53.) Nor were these unjust restrictions removed until the return of Mr. Davies from England some years later, with a written opinion from the attorney general, favorable to dissenters.

Such were the beginnings of this church. In 1741, we find the Synod of Philadelphia, before the schism of that year, increased from eight ministers to about forty-five; and from the fact frequently intimated in the Presbyterial and Synodical records, that many of them ministered to more than one church, and that many churches, as in Virginia, were formed on missionary fields, we infer that the number of churches under its care, might be between seventy-five and one hundred. In the absence of statistics on this point, we merely make a guess, probably not far from the truth.

We now approach, in this sketch, the period of a great schism in the Presbyterian church, and must briefly indicate two of its promi

nent causes. The revivals connected with the preaching and influence of Whitefield were shaking all the American churches; and Gilbert Tennent, fully entering into the ardent plans of that remarkable itinerant, had become the soul of a party. A princely preacher, an impetuous leader, and a fervent Christian, he had secured even more attention and admiration in Boston than Whitefield, and in his own Synod he felt himself to be the special apostle of revivals. Some of his brethren opposed him, and he and his friends defied all order in denouncing their opposers as graceless hypocrites. In 1740, Tennent preached his "Nottingham Sermon," perhaps the most abusive sermon ever preached in any country or any circumstances. It makes one's hair start to read it now. What must it have been then, uttered by one of the most animated and majestic speakers this country has seen! This sermon with various papers read by others in open Synod, exasperated the anti-revival ministers to the highest degree. In the face of an act of Synod, Tennent and his friends preached in the parishes of their opponents, and denounced them to their people "as guides stone-blind, stone-dead," as pharisees, "their eyes with Judas's fixed on the bag," resembling the "old pharisees, as much as one crow's egg does another." Our space only admits an allusion to this tremendous onset made on those who had arrayed themselves against the revival.

Another cause of the schism is to be found in the act of Synod requiring all candidates for the ministry, either to present a diploma from some European university or New England college, or to pass an examination before the Synod or its committee. This was regarded by the Tennents as a direct attack on the "Log College" as its enemies called it, a school started at Neshaminy, in Bucks Co., Pa., by Wm. Tennent, Sen. This act was obnoxious to them for two reasons. The first is indicated by an eye witness thus, "Mr. Gilbert Tennent crying out that this was to prevent his father's school from training gracious men for the ministry." The second was that the New Brunswick Presbytery contained some of the best men in the church, who believed that in some cases men of good sense and extraordinary piety might be set apart to preach, who could not pass the test laid down by the Synod. This Presbytery openly defied the Synod in licensing Mr. John Rowland and several others, contrary to that act. Still, it is but fair to say that, while we do not justify the violence and irregularity of the Tennent party, no one can read Dr. Alexander's account of the men sent from the Log College, without the conviction that there was no valid reason to fear that school. Gilbert Tennent himself was educated there, and, did our space permit, we would speak of the "powerful and evangelical preachers" furnished to the American church from that humble school. (Log College, passim, n. b., p. 61.)

The New Brunswick Presbytery would not yield an atom, and at last on June 1st, 1741, Mr. Cross of Philadelphia, in open Synod, read the celebrated " Protest," in behalf of himself and eleven other ministers, against the Tennent party. This document is not so abusive as the "Nottingham Sermon," but was equally, if not more, calculated to fan into a fierce blaze the bad feelings of both parties. The deed was not consummated by a vote, or any parliamentary process. "It was a disorderly rupture. *** Such was the schism of 1741." (Hodge, Part II, pp. 190-2.) It is not our object to detail the protests, and counter-protests, the refutations and the refutations refuted, and all the wrong sayings and doings on both sides. Gilbert Tennent afterward regretted his own harshness, and frankly acknowledged it, and both parties, after a lapse of seventeen years, made a practical recantation of their mutual wrong by rescinding and disowning both the sentiments of the "Nottingham Sermon," and those of the "protest" subscribed by the Old Side members.

Concerning the schism, Hodge remarks, that it was not completed until 1745, when the members of the New York Presbytery, who were not present in 1741, having in vain sought to reunite, on just principles, the separated parties, formally withdrew from the Synod of Philadelphia and joined the Synod of New York.

In 1745, the Synod of Philadelphia numbered from twenty to twenty-three ministers, and, during the separation, did little more than maintain their ground. They were active and made much effort at home, and in destitute regions, but there was a life, power, and talent in the other Synod, which made it popular. The very day of the schism some twenty applications for supplies were made from "old side" churches, and the "new side" ministers zealously responded to the calls. By 1743, Gilbert Tennent was in Philadelphia, and his brethren emulated his zeal, in abundant labors among the churches, and in building up new churches. And in reading the history of this period, we can not but be struck with the missionary zeal of both ministers and people. The pastors of some of the prominent churches were in the habit of making annual and in some cases semi-annual excursions into the newly settled parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and even of extending their labors hundreds of miles southward. It is worthy of our admiration that settled pastors performed on horseback the most arduous tours, which have no parallel in this day, except among our home missionaries in the frontier states. Nor was the conduct of ministers the only thing to be marked. The minutes of these Synods show that messengers came personally from Virginia and North Carolina, on the sole errand of securing temporary supplies. Railroads, telegraphs, and the post office, are so many rapid messengers for communicating the slightest wish of the destitute to our missionary boards, but then

journeys on horseback were necessary even to convey the knowledge of their destitutions. Seldom in this day shall we find such an incident as that already recorded of " Morris's Lutherans" following a preacher more than one hundred miles to ask him to preach, if no more, at least one sermon. The ministry and the destitute of that period deserve our esteem and praise.

In 1745, when the Presbytery of New York joined the excluded party, the Synod of New York, meeting in Elizabethtown, numbered twenty-two ministers; and when the reunion was effected, in 1758, that number had been almost quadrupled. A whole Presbytery, at the head of which stood Davies, had grown up in Virginia, and another Presbytery of nine members, from Long Island, had joined them. These men had labored with great success, while their opponents made almost no progress. Several attempts were made at healing the breach, but they were not successful until these brethren had been apart seventeen years; and then by concession, and a magnanimous forgetfulness of the past, the two Synods were enabled, on the 29th of May, 1758, to unite in a plan of union, and in a declaration, which, for nobleness of sentiment and Christian catholicism, is not often excelled. Verily, we can not avoid commending to the prayerful reperusal of every minister in that again divided church, the noble document subscribed by their predecessors near a century ago.

The two bodies were now called the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, and when united, the number of ministers on its roll was one hundred and two. In spite of the division, great progress had been made. Fifty years had swelled the roll of eight ministers to thirteen times that number. (List appended to Dr. Hodge's work, Part II, p. 511.) By reference to the Adopting Act of 1724, promulgating the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly as the system of their faith, and to the act of the following year adopting the directory of that body, "except certain clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters," which have the odious doctrine of the dependence of the church on the civil magistrate, we find this church as really Presbyterian in its character and growth, as the New England churches were Congregational. Its movements were those of the Kirk somewhat modified; and even in those events which led to the schism, and during the separation, both Synods strongly asserted all the positions of the Adopting Acts. There was some wildfire among the New Side men which led them sometimes to forsake the beaten road, but in their feelings and views, and for the most part, in their actions, they were followers of John Knox. We suppose the truth to be, that the founders of that church, many of them having been Presbyterians in the old country, preferred that system to all others; and being on the ground first, and having much material from their own foreign church organiza