XLII.

DR. BRIGGS'S ACQUITTAL.

DR. BRIGGS'S acquittal is a vindication of historic Presbyterianism. John Calvin, who so clearly expounded and so perfectly systematized the Pauline theology as to connect with it his illustrious name, made Geneva the capital of European reform and the cradle of civil and religious liberty. The historic distinction of the Presbyterian Church is its intimate connection with civil and religious liberty. Tyrants and despots, whether civil or religious, have always hated Presbyterianism. King James said at the Hampton Court Conference, "Ye are aiming at a Scots Presbytery, which agrees with monarchy as well as God and the devil." To the Calvinistic Melville he said, There will be no quiet in this country till half a dozen of ye be hanged or banished.” "Tush, sir!" replied Melville, "threaten your courtiers in that manner; but, God be glorified, it will not be in your power to hang or exile his truth." "The doctrine" (Presbyterianism),

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said Charles I., "is anti-monarchical-no bishop, no king." The Westminster Review, which certainly has no love for Presbyterianism, says, "Calvin sowed the seeds of liberty in Europe." Again it says, "Calvinism saved Europe." Bossuet, the Roman Catholic historian, speaking of the General Synod of France in 1559, says: "A great social revolution has been effected. Within the center of the French monarchy Calvin and his disciples established a spiritual republic," and out of it came the French Republic. Macaulay has shown that the great revolution of 1688, which gave liberty to England, was purchased by the labors and the blood of the Presbyterians of Scotland. Froude admits that the Scotch owe their national existence to the teachings of John Knox. The same author says, "Calvin has done more for constitutional liberty than any one man.”

The Presbyterian Synod in Philadelphia in 1775 was the first religious body to declare for American independence, and to counsel and encourage the people who were then about taking up arms. The "Mecklenburg Declaration," proclaimed by the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of North Carolina, May 20, 1775, and written by a Presbyterian elder and Princeton graduate, Brevard, is so similar in sentiment

and expression that Jefferson must have borrowed from Brevard, who wrote a year before Jefferson wrote.

Charles Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, in reporting to "The Church Missionary Society" at London, says that "without one exception all our clergy are on the side of the crown, and after strict inquiry I do not know one of the Presbyterian clergy who does not, by every effort in his power, promote all the measures of Congress, however extravagant."

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Chief-justice Tilghman says that 'the framers of the Constitution of the United States borrowed very much of the form of our republic from that form of Presbyterian government developed in the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland." Bancroft says, "He that will not honor and respect the influence of John Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty." A church so pre-eminently identified with civil and religious liberty would blot her history by now turning a man out of her communion for saying things which don't exactly square with the Confession of Faith-a confession that originated more than two hundred years ago in a divided assembly, and which articles were even then carried by a bare majority, with strong protest against them.

There are many intellectual roads to heaven. The only intolerance we should tolerate is intolerance of evil, and the only narrowness we should know is narrowness at the point of character. Let our brethren henceforth keep their differences to themselves, and not give the enemy occasion to blaspheme. As John Calvin said, "Let us have no discord on account of our differences, but let us march in one solid column under the banners of the Captain of our salvation, and with undivided counsels pour the legions of the cross upon the territories of darkness and death."

XLIII.

A TRIUMPH FOR AMERICANISM.

THE restoration of Dr. McGlynn to his priestly functions, unconditionally and without apology, in spite of his defiant attitude and unrelenting criticisms of persons and policies in the church ever since his excommunication, is the most significant ecclesiastical event of a generation. It is one of the grandest triumphs of the century for Americanism. The ultramontane interpretation of the power of the Pope to lord over the consciences of men has received a blow from which it may never recover. It is as inconsistent with our American liberties to yield allegiance to the Pope as to the Czar. The American Catholic who believes that he must unresistingly and uninquiringly obey the Pope or offend God is happily becoming the exception and not the rule, especially among representative laymen. There are Catholics in this country no more American than they were before they left Europe, and it is gratifying that they have