The Ecclesiastical Disruption of 1861 [pp. 321-351]

336 THE ECCLESIASTICAL DI~RUPTION OF i86i. [April,
While, therefore, we think the Address of Dec. 186i-inter
preted in the light of this corroborative testimony-contain~
within itself strong evidence of the truth of our position, that
it was the political status rather than the ecclesiastical action
which insured the separation of the Southern Church from the
Northern, we find another and wholly independent class of
facts which places the correctness of our position beyond alt
question. These facts, in the shape of official acts of Presbyte
ries and the arguments of the organs of public opinion, were,
some of them, extant several months, and others several weeks
before the meeting of the General Assembly in Philadelphia,
in May, i86i. We bring a sample of them into as compact a
form as possible': (i.) Several Southern Presbyteries which
had appointed commissioners to the General Assembly to con
vene in Philadelphia, called special meetings in April and May,
and~revoked these appointments. Notices of these meeting~
and of their action are found in the Southern religious journals
of the time, now in our possession. (2.) Some Presbyteries,
and those from the extreme South, as Mississippi, Louisiana
and Texas, and other points most remote from Philadelphia,
were represented, showing that it was not the apprehension of
war which kept so many members away. Some in Virginia, the
Carolinas, Georgia, and other less remote points, were not present, because their commissions had been revoked, or they were
persuaded by the leaders of the church not to attend. (3.) The
unstinted censure which the Southern religious press poured
up6n Southern commissioners who did sit in that Assembly,
is another item of proof of the foregone determination for division. In some instances this censure was very bitter. The
speeches and the votes of these commissioners against " the
Spring resolutions" did not shield them. The declaration of
Southern papers was, that they "should not have appeared
there at all." (4.) The fact that the Synod of South Carolina
sent up its records to that Assembly for review is no proof of a
willingness to continue ecclesiastically connected with the
North, but an incidental testimony to the contrary. Those
records had not been sent up for several years before. There
is ample reason for believing that a s~ecial motive induced the
sending of them in the spring of i86i. On this point light is