USA > Washington DC > The centennial of the beginning of Presbyterianism in the city of Washington > Part 2
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And then the cloud of the glorified that first and last have gone up from these courts after all the toil and prayer, after the tenderness of this earthly communion, the thrilling touch of heart to heart, of ordinance and rite and privilege and opportunity, in smiles and tears-gone up through the gates of the Eternal City into the transcendant splendors of the celestial life ! How many have long been gone, and some have left us only as it were but yesterday ! And here we stand gazing after them into heaven, crying out with Tennyson,
" Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, The sound of a voice now still."
The foot-stones of this church have been worn by the tread of the great figures in our history, by the diplomats of many countries, by statesmen and law- yers, by senators and judges, by presidents and by cabinets, by warriors and chieftains on land and sea, and by the American people from every city and country-side, and by travellers from foreign lands in every quarter of the globe. For a hundred years we have been in contact with the moving masses of humanity in storm and sunshine, in peace and war, and who can compute the emanation of public and private influence from this watch tower of Zion, reaching to all classes of society, touching all questions of truth and justice, of purity and honor, so deeply involving the welfare of mankind, so sternly attesting the supreme virtue of that old "faith which was once delivered to the saints."
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Now, when a hundred years have passed since they first met in the carpenter's shop, perchance a similitude of the very booth where the great Head of the church and the Savior of men spent so much of His early manhood, shall we not mark the cir- cumstance with every demonstration of Christian joy ?
"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God" ! The supreme glory of our Capital to-day, as it has been from the first, shines out in its Chris- tian churches and the schools and multiplied ele- mosynary institutions they have fostered. More than marble or bronze, more than all the parks and decorations, more than all the proud monuments of art and architecture, more than all the triumphs of mind over matter of which we are justly proud, are these temples of Religion which make our city the city of God. Stern may be their morals, exacting their theology, puritanical their ideas, but these are the forces that have evermore made the men and women of the ages, the true patriots and phil- anthropists of the world, heroes and heroines for God and truth and righteousness, despite the jeers and ribaldry of mocking generations.
From the first, this church has been related to the larger bodies of American Presbyterianism through the Presbytery, Synod and Assembly, a church polity from which in large measure, our Repulican form of Government is modeled.
Presbyterianism was brought to this country chiefly from the British Islands, where the seed-
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corn of it from Geneva had been plentifully scat- tered for a hundred years. It early took root in most of the colonies, for it is especially the religion of tempestuous and trying times. The persecuted Christians of Europe came here to find as one has said " a church without a bishop and a State with- out a king." But they brought with them at the same time their personal religious predilections. Out of these the American Protestant Church has reached the massive proportions of the present hour. Presbyterianism forms no exception to this great law of selection or election as we may choose to style it.
At this moment there are two Presbyterian Gen- eral Assemblies in our country, the North and the South. These are the principal bodies of our order. There are several smaller bodies bearing the Presby- terian name, which time and circumstance have differentiated from the larger cults and from each other, some of them having exerted but a limited influence on the religion of our times.
As this church is now and ever has been allied with those who are to-day represented in the North- ern Assembly, we may trace its connections through all the vicissitudes of the past down to the present hour.
The session, the Presbytery, the Synod and Assembly are the four courts through which we operate and combine. The Session is the court of each individual Congregation; the Presbytery is a number of Sessions combined and the first court of
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appeal, and the Synod is a number of Presbyteries combined and the second court of appeal, the Assembly is all the Synods combined and the final court of appeal, while the law-making power is lodged with the Presbyteries.
The first Presbytery was formed in Philadelphia in 1705. In 1716 the first Synod was constituted. In the next quarter of a century dissensions arose from which two Synods resulted called the "Old side," and the "New side." In 1758 they came to- gether again. In 1788 our present Standards were adopted and the first General Assembly was con- stituted. In 1801 a Plan of union with the Con- gregationists was adopted, out of which grew in part the divisions of the "Old school" and the "New school " and again the church was divided in 1838. This church through its Presbytery adhered to the 'New school" Assembly.
By this time the question of slavery began to be seriously agitated, both in church and state. In the "Old school" assembly every effort was made to quiet the agitation. In the "New school" as- sembly it annually grew more violent till 1857, when the assembly met at Cleveland, Ohio. There the commissioners from twenty-seven southern Presbyteries seceded in a body and put forth a manifesto calling for a distinct and separate organi- zation, which, in the following summer, resulted in the Knoxville Synod. At that time this church, through its Presbytery, was a constituent of the Virginia Synod. In the autumn of that year the
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Synod of Virginia, the majority of whom had gone into the new body formed at Knoxville, Tennessee, met in the Assembly's church in this city, their aim being to force the churches of our Presbytery into the new alliance, or drive the pastors from their pulpits. It was at this point that the first serious trial of our church arose. Many of our congregation strongly sympathized with the new movement, but their pastor did not. There he ut- tered his first protest against church secession, and, though the final vote for it was overwhelming, his vote with two others only was recorded in the nega- tive.
The excitement was intense. It continued till 1866, culminating in the Douglass lecture. Look- ing back upon it now we wonder at our survival. The effect of this opposition, however, was to sus- pend our Presbytery from all outside ecclesiastical connection for the next five years. Four years later the gathering storm of civil war burst over us and in 1862 our Presbytery "of the District of Co- lumbia" was attached to the Synod of Philadelphia.
The "Old school" Assembly held on its way and our city churches adhering to it, formed what was known as "The Presbytery of the Potomac." On the breaking out of the war the entire body of the southern churches separated from the " Old school'' Assembly and effected, at Augusta, Georgia, the Southern Assembly as it is to-day. Not long after, the Knoxville Synod was merged in it, while the Presbytery of the Potomac adhered to the northern wing of the " Old school" church.
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It was a period of intense agitation throughout the country, and for eight years more the two North- ern Assemblies pursued their work as a divided force. Time, however, was healing the breach be- tween them, and in 1869 their union was completed at Pittsburg, amid scenes of thrilling interest, never to be forgotten. The Pastor of this church was honored to share as the representative of our Presby- tery in those memorable proceedings. This event required a new arrangement of the higher courts, and in the following year the two Presbyteries of the District were combined under the title of "the Presbytery of Washington City," which thence forward became a constituent of the Synod of Bal- timore, and of the United Northern General Assem- bly. This is our relation at the present moment.
To-day Georgetown is part of the City of Wash- ington, and as such, our one church there, is older in organization than our own. With this excep- tion, we are the first and only Presbyterian church which started with the foundation of the Capital and has preserved its unbroken continuity for a hundred years.
During this commemoration you will hear from others the growth of Presbyterianism in our city and District. It is enough for me to say that our church has borne her part in making this Capital as the very city of God of which so many glorious things are spoken. The great churches of other orders have vied with her in the mighty mission of saving men, and their monuments, like our own,
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are this day around us. We rejoice together in what has been accomplished for the cause of our common Master. Their congratulations are most welcome and most heartily reciprocated. God speed them all !
From the day of Timothy's ordination by the lay- ing on of the hands of the Presbytery, down through the centuries, the principle of the Presbyterian polity and the syllabus of doctrine derived from prophets and apostles have been perpetuated. This may be traced through the Waldensians of northern Italy and other kindred bodies, and through the Hugenots of France and the Culdees of North Britain down to the time of Calvin. Then it began to assume wider proportions and exert a more potent influence. At length its creed and its government were formulated in the West- minster Assembly sitting in the Jerusalem chamber from 1643 to 1649. From that date to this, it has remained substantially unmodified. It is true that various bodies bearing the Presbyterian name as well as some others carrying the Presbyterian prin- ciple, have separated from each other on some spe- cific point of difference. But taken together, they do at this moment, in numbers, intelligence, wealth, heart-religion and aggressive force, rival the very largest and most powerful Protestant bodies in the world.
As to doctrine, it is conceded by all modern candid writers that the Westminster confes- sion with its catechisms is, on the whole, a
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most complete, logical and scriptural formula of religious belief. It is true, the chapteron de- crees, has been violently assailed both from with- out and from within, and yet the late attempt to revise it, with all the new light and learning of our time utterly collapsed. Nor did the earlier at- tempts of Polemic theology against its alleged re- flection on the divine character and its binding human action in the most absolute fatalism, suc- ceed in substituting any theodicy which more clearly posits the relation of God to the universe He has made and over which He is assumed to pre- side, or which more successfully obviates the thous- and objections springing up to any theory which the finite mind of man has ever conceived.
In every great religion there are always TWO PHASES appealing to human belief. There are doc- trines which concern human life and duty, and which are everywhere accepted in the general con- sciousness of their righteousness. This class of tenets is styled the exoteric doctrine, or those beliefs which comprise the essentials of salvation, human regeneration, righteousness of life and the divine favor both here and hereafter. These are simple and easy to be understood. But in addition to this there is a region of dogma relating to God and the universe, which it is impossible for a think- ing soul to evade, and which has absorbed the pro- foundest intellects in every age. These are called the esoteric doctrines, and should never be imposed
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upon the mass of Christian believers by any coercion other than their free assent.
Presbyterianism is still charged with holding the most repugnant views, and yet no church has been practically more free or broad or liberal. What she does insist upon is that her teachers shall agree as to the esoteric doctrines, but she holds no man account- able for any belief he may have outside of the plain conditions of membership and communion in the universal Catholic church of Christ. She rejects no one who accepts that class of tenets which relates to human life and conduct under the gospel dispen- sation, the same on which every genuine Christian body insists the world over.
Modern Presbyterianism is held chargeable with a single murder in its entire career, while thousands upon thousands of its children have been put to death in the merciless storm of papal and prelatical persecution. That murder was the inevitable result of the spirit of the times, and which by the very rashness of its victim involved the great Calvin in its execution, though he had labored to prevent it by a solemn forewarning which was recklessly disre- garded. Conceive of the great Pilot of the Reforma- tion standing on the bridge of the Gospel Ship, to guide her in safety out of the perils of that dark Pa- pal ocean on which she was tossing like a cockshell. Athwart her course shot the barque of a single man, a self-made fugitive from every harbor in Europe. "Hold ! Ahoy there! there's danger ahead !" rang out the cry from the pilot. It was unheeded,
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and the man was submerged in flames, while the trembling ship passed over him! That pilot was John Calvin.
Aside from this, Presbyterianism, has no history which needs the pity or the charity of posterity. On the other hand her service in the cause of humanity as against the exactions of despotism in church and state has been pre-eminent. True the events of thirty years ago, had carried the Southern Church into a separate organization, but they were events which involved the entire population of the country in the responsibility which was then assumed. Making therefore all abatements required by the truth of history, we may claim without fear of successful contradiction, that no portion of the Protestant Church, has rendered more valuable contributions to the cause of human welfare.
Our church has everywhere stood for :
The Bible as the revealed word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
For the Divine Sovereignty and human account- ability.
For the covenant of Grace, executed by Christ, the only Savior, and the Holy Spirit the only sanctifier of men.
For the Christian Sabbath, as the great land-mark of Christian time, the legitimate successor of the Patriarchal and Jewish Sabbaths.
We stand also for the two sacraments : Baptism by the sprinkling of water as a seal of God's cove- nant to believers and their children. The Lord's
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Supper as a simple memorial, a bond of union a pledge of fidelity and a means of grace.
For the parity of the clergy and the broadest evangelical fellowship.
For the right and necessity of universal and through popular education.
For the free research and investigation of human thought.
For free speech and private judgment, regulated by law.
For individual conscience and the liberty of the press.
For civil government, "of the people, for the peo- ple and by the people" in both sexes.
For the cause of temperance the world over.
For purity in politics and public morals.
For the uplifting and reformation of human society in all its grades of existence.
For the spread of evangelism throughout the earth.
For the dawn of that millennial day when all the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
It was from this platform that Frederick Doug- lass, the foremost orator of the colored race in his days, delivered his great lecture on the Assassina- tion of Lincoln, when there was no other roof in this city to shelter him.
Presbyterianism is a representative government like that of our Republic, in many features of which, as I have said, they are similar. It is the
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inspiration of patriotism and the firm pillar of all righteous administration. From the beginning it has ballasted our modern civilization in all the great emergencies of national vicissitude.
Presbyterianism in America has stood as the fore- most breakwater of evangelism against the flood- tide of European sediment and speculation, and wider still, against the stream of more ancient and more distant conceptions of human destiny, and never, so long as the sun shines or the storms thun- der, shall her protest be wanting against the nebu- lous and uncertain theories which would destroy every vestige of the supernatural from off the face of the earth.
Such is the service rendered by Presbyterianism to our country and the world. This old church has been in it for a hundred years, keeping equal pace with the Capital itself. May we not look back on it to-day with joy and wonder and with special thanksgiving to Almighty God ! "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God."
From this watch-tower of Zion, we have looked out upon the marvellous spectacle of the nine- teenth century, a century of world wonders in the corridors of time. What an era in the life-time of our beloved church ! Our government came here in 1800. The Union was then but a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast. To-day it stretches across the fairest portion of the continent, spanned by Arctic snow and Southern gulf ! Then three millions, now sixty-five millions of people, dwell-
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ing and delving amid marvels of nature beyond the imagination of man. What a tutelage in countless branches of enterprises developing conditions of life unknown to the fathers of the Republic, where transit and tidings out-speed the fleetest time and make the globe one neighborhood, where the great professions have advanced far beyond the lines of former triumphs, and professions before unheard of, are filling the mighty scale of human achieve- ments. Science is reaping fresh harvests from the limitless fields of nature. Literature and philos- ophy expatiate with a temerity of freedom, beyond the romantic wisdom of the ancients ; wealth and labor are rearing unrivalled monuments of civiliza- tion, where seats of learning and homes of benefac- tion transcend the fabled shrines and oracles of the past, where the problems of social and political economy are pressing for solution in such a school of human freedom as the sun never before looked down upon, where human life itself has been mag- nified and intensified in all directions, where the moral forces of a pure religion rooted in God's Bible, are clarifying and uplifting human society as never before in any generation, and where the omnipotent spirit of the ever-living God is breath- ing through the chaos of humanity, as once before " when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy !"
In this century the watchmen on this rampart of our Zion with all Americans have seen and felt the storm and ravage of foreign and civil war. In our
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very midst two Presidents of the Republic have been slain by the red hand of the assassin. Great tragedies have been enacted here which have gone thrilling into every corner of the earth. Poets have sung with all the fervor of our patriotism ; orators have thundered in our Senate ; men of affairs have created a new world of physical conditions ; our national charter has survived the most terrific con- vulsions ; "The Star Spangled Banner," still un- soiled, gleams in every ray and floats on every breeze. We have seen the shackles fall from four millions of bondmen, and the rescue of our commerce from the wolf-dogs of the sea ; we have seen our national credit redeemed and our Union cemented and, con-
secrated by the blood and sacrifice of two millions of our citizens ; we have seen the mastery of steam and lightning over time and space ; we have seen our educational system unfolding from the primitive school-house to the grand university ; we have seen the immeasurable power of the press untrammelled by any censorship ; we have seen the Samaritan of christian beneficence binding up the bruised body of unfortunate humanity and bearing it away to some hostlery of relief ; we have seen our young and puissant Republic rising to the foremost seat among the great powers of the world ; we have seen the annual festivals and local expositions of a proud and prospered people crowned by the nation's centennial, and, later, still by that world's exhibi- tion in the White City by the Lake. And still to-day is another in process in a fair city of the
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South ; and, above all, we have seen that angel which hath the everlasting Gospel to preach to all people, making, in his wondrous flight, the whole circuit of the earth. How august has been the American arena, in the center of which we have stood ! What grand figures have moved across our stage ! What thrilling scenes have stirred all hearts with the comedy and the threnody of Ameri- can life ! May we not in truth exclaim, " Glorious things are spoken of thee, Oh City of God."
Nor less have been the movements abroad in this same great period, too many and too mighty to be numbered here. Diplomacy, intrigue, oppression, rivalry, jealousy and bloody war among the nations, revolution, outbreak, the strong against the weak, patriot hope deferred, blood mingled with tears, the map of nations changed, hermit doors thrown open, empires passed away, Russian serfdom gone, the German States solidified in the heart of Europe, Italy unified, the Pope no longer a temporal sov- erign, France a Republic, Spain and Austria falling in the scale, Turkey the nest of a butchering relig- ion, and the rape of woman, deluding the mightiest kingdoms of Christendom, Japan accepting occiden- tal civilization, and but yesterday shaking the foundations of the oldest empire on the face of the globe, India a dependency of the British Crown- that unnatural mother England, I grieve to say, whose lust for power tramples on everything too weak to resist her arrogance, Africa so long a shrouded continent thrown open at last to the
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rapacity of European gunnery and craft, and far- off Liberia-infant daughter of American philan- thropy, struggling upward to influence and power amid gigantic difficulties-violent tumults and bloody insurrections in the Central and South American states, many Islands of the sea re- claiming from barbarism and seeking some stable form of popular government, the ceaseless cabals of the Jesuites, the Mormon imposture, the strange mystery of modern spiritualism, the fanaticism and falsity of second Adventism, the fading away of the Indian aborigines, the violence and desperation of Nihilism and Anarchism, the revival of religious scepticism ; hand in hand with falsetto German scholarship, spreading the mildew of agnosticism and unbelief through all the senses of a materialistic generation ; the renewal of old theories of morality and religious faith, long since exploded ; the Mam- mon god, and title worship, luxury, idleness, ener- vation ; American womanhood sold out to the effete lordlings of the old world at the price of millions ; the monstrous liquor octopus with tenticles buried in the heart of humanity, and sucking away the very life-blood of the nations. All these things sapping out the very vigor and virility of human society, and the never-ceasing conflict of human thought and opinion, kindling contentions every- where, both in church and state. But thanks be to God, in it all and over it all we see the ceaseless preaching of the doctrines of the Nazarene, that divine and God-sent teacher of the human race,
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Redeemer and Savior of mankind, once dead and buried, but now risen and ascended to the glory from which He came to be head over all things to the church the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, and whose saving grace this pulpit has never ceased to proclaim without reservation, omission or revision through all the century.
Of all these things, this church has been a wit- ness, and of some of them has been a part. How vast the panorama and the spectacle. Out of this clock-tower of time no false alarm has ever issued. None have ever been misled who have sought coun- sel here. Let us rejoice together on this day of rejoicing. "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O, City of God." The nineteenth century is closing. What shall the twentieth reveal ? We know the pastof our beloved church-what shall its future be ?
I shall not live to see it. The day of my life is waning-my sun must soon go down. The work- men cease, but the work of God goes on. Con- scious that I have performed my little task so feebly-grateful that this church has borne me up so long, I must soon resign my part to those whom God in his great and merciful providence has so recently drawn into His ministration here. In all my personal experience in connection with this church nothing has been more grateful, nothing more hopeful, nothing for which I more earnestly and more devoutly thank my God and your God, than the coming to us just at this crisis, of a minister whom God has so, qualified and sealed for preaching
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