Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-09-28
PAN PRESBY TERIANS.
An Important Meeting Opened in Washing
ton Yesterday.

TON 1oSbSTuafs
WASHINGTON, September 27.-Deie-
gates representing %, 100000 Presbyterians
throughout the world assembled at 1880
to-day in the New York avenue Presby
terrain church to attend the first session of
the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance. The church
auditorium is one of the most commodious
in the city and had been beautifully dec
Grated for the occasion.
The New York Avenue Church in which
the sessions of the Alliance will be held
is one of the most notable in the capital.
1t is the church which Lincoln attended
when he was president and the pew which
he and his family occupied was object
of particular interest to the delegates when
they assembled.
When the first session of the Alliance
convened to-day about 125 delegates had
reported their arrival to the Rev. G. D.
Matthews. general secretary. 1t is expect
ed by tomorrow 80 delegates will have re-
ported.
The sessions of the Alliance will last 10
days. The body is purely deliberative, and
not in any sense legislative. Its capacity
is entirely advisory.
The first session to-day was devotional
in character. the services being in charge
VI INtN. III. w dtldt6 hdQClilc. prtStOI VI
the church in which the sessions are held.
The opening sermon was preached by the
Rev John Dewitt, D. D., professor of
church history at Princeton theological
seminary, his subject being THE attitude
of the reformed churches toward the
Bible"
The subject of higher criticism, social
ed, promises TO be one of the seriously
-
was directly adverted to both in the SER
mon of DR.. De Witt and subsequently in
the formal address of the president of the
council, the Rev. DR.. ]. Marshall Lang, OF
Glasgow. Scotland. Referring to the al
titude of the churches represented by the
council towards the Bible, DR.. De Witt
said:
This attitude is embodied in the well
known phrase of William ChiIlingworth:
The Bible and the Bible alone is the re-
ligion of Protestants.' 1t involves the two
great propositions, that the Holy Scrip
lures are the supreme rule of religious
faith and conduct, and, that being suffi
cient and perspicuous, they do not need.
for religious purposes, the mediation of the
church as either witness or Interpreter
The feature of the afternoon session was
the ADDRESS OF the president Oh the council,
the Rev DR.. J. Marshall Lang, pastor of
the famous Barony church. of Glasgow,
Scotland. His address commanded the in
terested attention Of his auditors, al
though it was quite evident that his COM
ments upon higher criticism" and the
position of the church thereon, will be
made the topic of discussion later in the
sittings of the council. Referring to the
position of the church upon this question.
DR. Lang said:
"The churches which this council repre-
sents will command the attention of the
age only in the NE sure in which without
lowering either their testimony or their
ideals. they recognize and make room for
its trends and habits Of thought and its
expansions and complexities of life. We
are not worshippers of the past. But if
it is a false liberalism which ruthlessly
tears the present from the past, it is an
equally false conservatism which insists
that the molds into which the conclusions
of a by-gone- period were cast shall re-
main fixed and rigid for all further per-
i0dS