Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-06
South Highland Presbyterian Church.

South Highland Presbyterian Church.
 Rev. John Barbour preached from Psalms cxxxvii, CT. His subject was: why Presbyterians Should Love Their Church.
 First, because of it's scriptural foun- dation We reject none of Gods word. We add nothing to it. We suffer no pile to be driven outside the scriptures as part of our foundation. We have scrip tural government The people govern themselves through elders elected by themselves.
 We have scriptura1 simplicity in wor- ship. We have none but scriptural bish- ops and priests.
 Every elder is a bishop Phil. i,1)
 Every believer is a priest q Peter ii, 9. What multitude of abuses, what centuries of woes and prosecutions have come into the church by adding to the scriptures here. It reaches out into Christian character. We would not wit ness the Goddess lives of many Chris tians if we had held closely to the priest hood of every believer.
 The Presbyterian church in every age Ina 7 stood for purity in doc Urine an1 worship and govern mcnt. Wherever there was a man or a group in the dark ages pro testing against tyranny in the govern ment and laXity in the morals of the church you would find they held Presby terian principles. In the glorious Wal densees the Presbyterian church goes back to the apostles In the valleys of Piedmont these brave and faithful souls had dwelt for centuries, keeping alive the purity of the early church. Today they show their affinity with us by send ing delegates to our Presbyterian gath erings. They are Presbyterian in gov ernment and worship and doctrine.
 In every struggle for civil and religious liberty Presbyterians had been in the very front. They won the liberties of Scotland against the encroachments of monarchy and prelacy, and in the strug- gle for English liberty the Presbyterians of Scotland had saved the day. The stand of PresbyterianS in the American revolution is well known. Recently Mon cure D. Conway had written that he had seen in French archives the report of a Frenchman in this country at the time that PresbyterianS were "the backbone of the patriot cauA."
 Presbyterianism is known for it's large charity. It recognizes and fellowships with all Gods people. even when they do not receive our members by letter and deny our ministers their pulpits. Of course other churches are answerable on- ly to God. but let them not reflect upon the liberality of the Presbyterian church whilst dealing so with us.
 The preacher closed by saying that the weakness of Presbyterianism is it's strength. Our church is full of people not Presbyterian just. because we receive them so easily and exact nothing of them except purpose to follow Christ We are sometimes charged with rigor and narrowness in our discipline. As a fact, ours is the church of popular rights of self-government and of the greatest freedom. We do not hold to a single doc Urine or practice peculiar to ourselves.
 The Baptist and Congregational and Epscopalian churches had election in their standard as well as we. The Meth odst church insisted upon Christian livirg as Christian should. I never ex- pect to protest against worldly amuse ments any stronger than has been done by the most eminent and pious Episco> palian bishops. Let us seek the glory of our church in q Bible Christianity and in