Notes On Current Topics [pp. 371-382]

372 NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS. [April,
Among the conspicuous advantages of such a gathering would be:
1. A visible manifestation of the strength of those Christian churches
which are Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in polity, and of
the poweriul tendency of these respective types of doctrine and ecdesiasticism to coalesce and become mutually auxiliary. As Presbyterians are so widely diffused throughout Christendom, and found in
different bodies, and under different titles, in the same country, this is
now but partially seen. It does not strike the common mind, or become evident to any who do not make it a matter of special study.
2.It would incidentally contribute to display something of the extent,
power and character of Protestantism by thus giving palpableness to a
single element of it. 3. Neither Presbyterianism nor Calvinism would
suffer by thus letting their light shine before the world. They will
gain, the more their adherents and fruits are brought to view. The
more they are seen, the more will they extort from adversaries the reluctant testimony of Hume to the high virtues of the Puritans~ on the
same pages in which he denounces and vilifies their doctrines. 4. Presbyterians of all parts of the world will be mutually instructed and profited by such conference. Provincialisms and individualisms of doctrine and practice, often contrary to the scriptural, historical and catholic in Calvinism, will tend to melt away. Antagonisms will be reconciled, and the narrow, angular, unhistoric singularities prevailing in
menced in 1560, when the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
met under Knox, and numbered six ministers and thirty-four laymen. Three
hiindred years ago the English language was almost confined to England and
the Scottish Lowlands, and the people who spoke it might fairly be estimated
at five millions. That handful has increased to about seventy-five millions;
- and wherever the language has gone Presbyterianism hns gone also. The six
ininisters of 1560 in Scotland alone have as their successors three thousand
ministers. In Ireland there are about 600 ministers and congregations. In
England there are at least 250. In tbe Dominion there are upward of 500
ministers and eburches of our order. In Australia, New Zealand, Africa, West
Indies, etc., there are about 500 more. All the Presbyterian churches in the
United States put together number about 7,200. The Presbyterian churches
that look back to the Assembly at Edinburgh in 1560 as fl~oir mother Assembly number in all about twelve thousand ministers and churches, living ill the
British Isles, in the United States, in British America, and in the isles of the
Southern Seas. With the exception of the ten or twelve per cent. that constitute the Established Church in Scotland, the whole of this body owes its sup
port to the free-will offerings of the people, and therefore possesses at least the
kind and degree of life and activity necessary for continuing its own existence.
No political revolution can greatly affec t its strength or its welfare."