The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-17
4 HISTORICAL SREPOH.

AS the General Assembly which meets on
Thursday is the first of the reunited Church, it
becomes opportune to glance at the history of
the denomination, the causes which led to the
great schism of 1888, and the means whereby
the reunion, generation later, was brought
about.
The PRESBYTERIAN Form of Church Govern
Properly speaking the Presbyterian Church is
that division of the Church Militant which, in
its polity, holds to the equality of all ministers
or 'Presbyters" and rejects all prelates, under
the authority of government constituted like
that of the United States; and, in doctrine, to
the theological system known as Reformed, Call
whistle, or Augustnian. Presbyterianism thus
opposes the polity which Gas in tie Roman
Catholic, Methodist Episcopal, and Protestant
Episcopal Churches) makes three orders in the
ministry, and also that which, as in the case of
the Baptists, Congregationalists, and Unitarians,
allows no higher authority over any church
society than its own members and officers; while
on doctrinal points it is arrayed against the
Arminian school of theology.
The name is derived from the Greek word
presbuteros, an elder, which expresses the sys-
tenn of church government by presbyteries or
associations of teaching and ruling elders. The
Presbytery or association of ministers (elders)
is the leading judiciary. The whole care of the
flock is committed to teaching elders and ruling
elders. The two classes of elders are of equal
authority in all ecclesiastical bodies. series
of publications rising one above another secures
to each church the watch and care OF its appro-
pirate judicatores, and to the whole body an eff
clent system of review and control. Though
there may be much diversity in the names of
the several iudicatories as well as in the mi
nuter details of arrangement, yet any church
embodying the above principles is strictly a
Presbyterian church.
Presbyterians believe that the representative
system of church government, in opposition to
that which is conducted by the entire ecelesi-
astieal population, has its germ in the Old Tes-
lament inasmuch as the children of Israel had
''wise and able men" set over them who were
styled elders. This was known to have been a
distinctive feature of the synagogue system ND
TO the time of the sayiour's advent. The first
converts to Christianity being all Jews, it was
natural for them to adopt the same representa-
tive system. We accordingly read in the New
Testament of ''elders being ordained in every
church." su . -.I3.tr
The Mother Church. tlrt
The Church of Scotland, which was the
Mother Church of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States, may be said TO have had its
remote origin in the first introduction of the
principles of the Reformation into that country
about 1927. When Charles L. with view of
assimilating the two Churches of England and
Scotland, determined 10 introduce a liturgy
which in Scotland had been disused since the
reformation, together with set of canons abol-
ishing the control over ecclesiastical measures
which had been conceded to the inferior church.
judicatories, he was met with prompt opposi
ton by the people. The dissatisfied entss--si
lCsa!iaaed on he Ssee.d