The General Assembly [pp. 511-546]

General Assembly.
Boardman, with marked ability and effect, referred to our
standards, and to the modest and moderate language therein
employed, as utterly inconsistent with this extreme high-church
doctrine. Our fathers were content with claiming that our
system is "agreeable with Scripture," and never assume an
explicit divine prescription for all its details.
4. If the matter is viewed in the light of expediency, the
argument is not less decisive against any radical change.
Such change without any imperative necessity would itself be
a great evil. It would be an inconsistency. After having for
years contended not only for the lawfulness, but the necessity
of Boards, for us now to cast them aside would be a dishonour
to those who have gone before us, and utterly inconsistent with
proper respect for the dignity of the church. The Boards
have been signally owned and blessed by the great Head of
the church, and made the means of incalculable good. The
objection that certain Presbyteries do not cooiperate with our
present organizations, is met by the fact that those who dissent
on the ground of principle are a very small minority, such as
must be expected to exist in any free church under any system
of operation; and as to eficiency it is enough that the Presbyteries which coioperate most liberally with the Board of
Missions are precisely those which do most to promote the
work of missions within their own borders. To throw our
weak Presbyteries, covering immense districts of thinly populated parts of the country, on their own efforts, and to confine
the central committee to the region beyond our ecclesiastical
limits, would be virtually to give up the work altogether, and
to abandon the growing parts of the country to irreligion or to
the labours of other denominations. The objection that the
Boards are a mere incumbrance, a useless intervention between the executive committees, and the General Assembly,
is met by saying: 1. That these Boards, consisting of members
widely scattered, serve to increase interest and responsibility in
the work. 2. They can be called together on emergency for
consultation and direction when the Assembly is not in session.
They can meet and spend days in the examination of records
and sifting out evils or errors which an Assembly of three
hundred members could not possibly do. Occasions have
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