Beneficiary Education [pp. 236-264]

254 BENEFICIARY EDUCATION. [April,
York recommended " that an annual collection be taken up in
all its churches, for the support of young students whose cir
cumstances render them incapable to maintain themselves at
learning, and for other charitable purposes."
Nor was there any falling away from the precedents and
principles, but a perfecting of the measures relating thereto,
when the divisions of the churches were healed, and they had
become united again in the Synod of Philadelphia and New
York. In 1771 this body approved and recommended a plan
for the assistance, of candidates for the ministry, submitted by
the Presbytery of New Castle, providing that every vacant
congregation, on receiving supply, should pay ~2, and every
minister ~1, and voluntary subscriptions from others should
be solicited. It also made provision that the ben~ciary candidate should be examined and his studies directed by some one
appointed by the Presbytery; also, each beneficiary should
labor one year, from the time of his license, within the bounds
of the Presbytery that had aided him; and in case he did not
enter the ministry, he should give bonds to reft'nd, in five
years, the money he had received. The Presbyteries of New
York, New Brunswick, and 2d Philadelphia fully complied, as
appears from their minutes, with these requisitions. Several
others did so in part. (See Hodg~'s Const. JJist., and Ci1iett'~
H?~t. of Pres. C/iurJ~, rev. ed.)
Such was the status of the educational work of the Presby
terian Church at the formation of the General Assembly in
1788. The Revolution, a struggle for life and liberty in the
church as well as state, nearly suspended the execution and
perfection of all measures for growth and enlargement in the
church, while it continued. But the crisis having past, and order
being restored, the Holy Spirit came down in power again at
the close of the last and the beginning of this century. "The
Great Revival" of 1800 aroused the church to the wide spirit
ual desolation of the country, and led to earnest and organize~
efforts on a larger scale to supply them. The General Assembly of i8o6 took up the subject, and sent down an overture to
the Presbyteries, "requiring them to instruct their Comm issioners to the Assembly respecting the education of pious
youths for the gospel ministry."
M(hen the report was made in the Assembly upon the action