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with them; if there were men who deliberately sacrificed every prospect in life, rather than sanction enormous wrong; if there were those who severed themselves from the ties of kindred, lineage, neighborhood, companionship, friendship, to stand up for the rights of strangers and foreigners; if there were men whose hearts bled at every step they took, while they went forward in darkness with no voice but the Saviour's to cheer them; if there were those who saw clearly that upon their courage then, whatever might become of them, hung the hopes of religious liberty for a great Church, and as that Church has been its bulwark since the Reformation, in a great degree the hopes of religious liberty itself; if there were men who nerved themselves by gathering inspiration from every affliction of the righteous for truth, and every battle-field for liberty in past time; if there were those who heard the voice of every confessor and martyr of every age and felt themselves encompassed by that amphitheatre of the holy Universe which gathers to the few and greatest crises of the world's history, and so filled and fired and nerved, resisted one of the most fearful tyrannies in the history of all time, and wrought out one of the noblest deliverances of the world, then do we say, that that sneer becomes. the noblest eulogy. The honest conviction of our intellect confirms the thrilling of our heart while we say, that no period of the history of the Church deserves more truly the epithet "heroic."

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The sum of all our Articles on the Spirit of American Presbyterianism, we have digested into the following propositions; and we invite any one who can, to investigate and overthrow any one of them.

I. The American Presbyterian Church was originally founded in a union of Irish, New England, English, Welsh, Scottish and French emigrants, who established, in 1705, through the medium of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, a liberal form of Presbyterianism, on the understood, but not formally adopted, basis of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Form of Government.

II. The Church increasing, formed the Synod of Philadelphia, in 1717; and in 1729, the Synod, acting as a constituent

body, after due notice, continued the Church on the same foundation, by the ADOPTING ACT, which formally adopted the Westminster Confession and Form of Government, as a system, for the substance of them; or in other words, established as the basis of the Church, the necessary and essential articles only, of Calvinism and Presbyterianism.

III. A very large emigration of Scotch-Irish brethren having meanwhile arrived, attempts to introduce a more rigid system, aggravated by differences which mainly grew out of the great revival of religion of which Whitefield, Edwards and the Tennents were the principal promoters, finally issued in the Exscinding Act of 1741, by which a large part of the liberal men representing the American Presbyterian Church as it had stood from the beginning, were unconstitutionally exscinded from the Synod.

IV. The portion of the Synod who disapproved of its proceedings, though not themselves exscinded, after making every possible effort to have the Exscinding Act repealed, at length uniting with the exscinded brethren, formed, in 1745, the Synod of New York on the original liberal basis, as established in the Settlement of 1729, maintaining a friendly correspondence with the original Synod.

V. The Synod of New York, having grown to be three times the size of the Synod of Philadelphia, after a time induced the latter to repeal the Exscinding Act, and both Synods having united, they continued the Succession on the same general and liberal basis of 1729, in the great Union Settlement of 1758.

VI. Just before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, our Church having determined to form a Constitution and a General Assembly, entered into negotiations to unite in one grand body all the Presbyterian Churches in America. This plan failed through the rigidity of the Reformed Dutch and Associate Reformed bodies. Our Church therefore acted alone, and our present Constitution being ratified by the third great Settlement on the same liberal basis of 1729 and 1758, the Assembly met for the first time in 1789, in Philadelphia, the same time and place of the Convention for the adoption of the Constitution of the United States.

VII. In 1801, the Assembly entered into a Plan of Union

with the Congregationalists of New England, through the General Association of Connecticut, succeeded by a Union with the "Middle Association of the Western District," and the "Northern Associated Presbytery," entered into by the Synod of Albany, and ratified by the Assembly in 1808, and in 1822, a forced Union was made, through the influence of some leading men, with the Associate Reformed Church.

VIII. Collisions now arose, and the "Old Side" party, now calling themselves "Old School," acting precisely as did their fathers in 1736 and 1741, insisted on rigidity in subscription to the Confession, and in all ecclesiastical movements, which was resisted, as contrary to the spirit and history of the Church. Meanwhile the foreign elements from the Seceder and Congregational Churches entering eagerly into the strife, the rigid party succeeding in obtaining an accidental majority in the General Assembly of 1837, exscinded unconstitutionally the four Synods of Utica, Geneva, Genesee and the Western Reserve.

IX. The liberal or truly Presbyterian Division of the Church endeavored to bring the rigid party to correct views and feelings, but finding it impossible, they proceeded, just as did the so-called "New Side," or liberal and revival body in 1745, inviting all true American Presbyterians to unite with them, to continue the Succession of the Presbyterian Church in the General Assembly of 1838, which met in the old place of assembling, the First Presbyterian Church on Washington Square, Philadelphia. They retained as their only Basis the Constitution of the Church, as uniformly interpreted in our history.

X. The residuary or rigid body also organized themselves into a General Assembly, on the basis of their exscinding and exclusive action of 1837 and 1838, retaining the Constitution as their basis only in a modified sense, viz.: as interpreted by their acts of 1837 and 1838, authorizing unconstitutional violence, and demanding exclusive action, and rigid, or ipsissima verba subscription.

XI. A re-union of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church is feasible whenever the "Old Side" repeal their unconstitutional action, and return to the liberal and noble spirit of our fathers, as shown in the main current of the Church from the beginning.

LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE.

ITALY.

A new work on Christopher Columbus has just appeared at Rome, written by the last descendant of the great discoverer, a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. The title of the work is: Patria e Biografia del grande Ammiraglio D. Cristofero Colombo de' Conti e Signori di Cuccaro. It is said to throw much light upon the early history of Columbus; and it gives a new portrait, believed to be authentic. An American translation is promised.

Dr. Wetzstein, Prussian consul at Damas, has purchased for his government five hundred Arabic MSS. for 70,000 piastres. They are destined for the Royal Library of Berlin. They comprise Mussulman works in history, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geography and natural history. There are two fragments of the Koran, of remarkable chirography.

The Tuscan Moniteur announces the discovery by M. Ottavio Gigli, in the Florence library, of an autograph work by Galileo, supposed to be lost, containing reflections and commentaries upon Dante.

The Athenæum gives an account of the progress of the new edition of the Italian Dictionary of the Della-Cruscan Academy of Florence, from which it appears that at its past rate of progress it will be completed in 513 years and 11 months.

Romain's "History of the Republic of Venice," vol. i., to be comprised in 10 vols.; Alberi's "Narratives of Venetian Ambassadors, in XVIth century," vol. viii.; "Historical Researches on the election of Pope John XXII.," Paris, 1854; Darus' "History of Republic of Venice," iii. vols.

FRANCE.

Mazarin's Letters from 1643 to 1661 are to be published under the authority of the French Academy: this will make the series of authentic French Memoirs complete from 1550 to 1715.

J. Neve on Buddhism; St. Hilaire on the Vedas; Chs. Renouvier, General Analysis of Human Knowledge, vol. i.; Lamartine's History of Turkey, vols. i-iii.: Villemain's Essays on Literature, a new edition; L. Lalanne, Memoirs of Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné; Dupuy's Life of St. Gregory of Tours, the first historian of the Franks.

A. M. Cervantes, a Spanish author, has published at Paris, a work with the title "Political, Historical and Social Studies on the Rio de la Plata,” embracing the Argentine Confederation, Uruguay and Paraguay, which is said to throw much light on the condition of those countries. The object of the work is to stimulate the European powers to renewed activity in our Southern Hemisphere.

A complete collection of the Roman inscriptions, found in Gaul, is to be published in a large quarto volume, by order of the Government, edited by M. Léon Revier.

The traveller M. F. de Sauley has published a volume on "Jewish Numismatics."-Abbé Bougeat, History of Philosophy, vol. i.; The Oriental Period.-Abbé Darras' General History of the Church, vols. iii. and iv., arranged by the Pontificates.-Chs. Bartholome's Critical History of the religious Doctrines of modern Philosophy, is in press; also, M. Matter, History of Philosophy in its relations to Religion.

Abbé Gratry has received from the French Academy a prize for his "Treatise on the Knowledge of God," and Jules Simon for his work on "Duty."

J. Faure, Studies on the Anthropology of Calvin in its Relations to Redemption, published at Montauban.

GERMANY.

Dr. J. K. L. Gieseler, the church historian, died at Gottingen on the 8th of July last; he was born in 1792; from 1819 to 1831 he was professor at Bonn, and afterwards at Gottingen. His first work, in 1818, was on the Origin and History of the Gospels; in 1821 he published an account of the Diet at Augsburg in 1530; his Church History appeared in successive volumes and editions, between 1824 and 1853. He also wrote numerous articles in periodicals. He left a volume of his history, from 1814 to the present time, ready for the press. The period from 1648 to 1814 is nearly ready. A "History of Doctrines to the Reformation," is also nearly completed. These three volumes will soon be published, edited by Professor Redepenning.

Under the supervision of the Government, Dr. Henri Brugsch is to publish at Berlin, the results of his Egyptian explorations in 1853-4. He brought back valuable documents illustrative of the geography, history, mythology and astronomy of the Egyptians. The publication will be in 24 parts, continued through five years.

The first part of the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, for 1855, announces that Dr. Rothe of Heidelberg will take the place of Dr. Gieseler, as one of its editors. The chief articles of this number are, an Introduction, by the editors, on the State of German Theology, Prof. Schenkel on the Principle of Protestantism, Dr. Schwarz on the original edition of Melanchthon's "Loci," now published from a MS. in the Gotha Library in the twenty-first volume of his works, and Prof. Bleek on Luecke's Introduction to the Apocalypse.

The first "Heft" of Niedner's "Journal of Historical Theology," contains a continuation of Prof. Scharling's Essay on Molinos and the Quietists of the seventeenth century, and the conclusion of the account of the "Inspired Churches," from 1688 to 1853.

The Tübingen "Theological Year-Book," Nos. 3 and 4, 1854, contains, Zeller on Paul and Augustine, Doctrine of Sin and Grace; Caius or Hip

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