The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-01
Seminary To Be Purged Of
 All HeretiCS
Presbyterian Church < Overture to Union Means Latter's Surrender to Orthodoxy

cal Seminary is to be reorganized b!
 the Presbyterian general assembly l The church has practically secured l control of the seminary, and has no | surrendered in its twenty-year fgh l against heresy.
 This is the real meaning of the ''overtures" to the seminary trustees | made at the general assembly in At | lantic City last week.
 The directors of the seminary have given substantial assurance that they will insist that all instructors in the divinity school shall be free from the | taint of heresy. Those who are un. able or unwilling to subscribe to the
 essential doctrines of the Presbyter.
 ian church will have to go.
 THE BROWNS TO BE DROPPED This means President Francis Brown probably will be supplanted and also Dr. William A. Brown, professor o1 applied theology. One or two others may feel the rod. also The committee will insist that there is no room in the Presbyterian church for those who doubt the deity of Jesus Christ. His miracles and the Atonement. New York presbytery will come in for its share of the purgine in time, it is said on good authority That the majority of it's membership now favOrS this is also said to be true.
 When the resolutions offered at At lantic City by Dr. David Gourley Wylie, pastor of the Scotch Presby- terian church, at Central Park West ed. it was hailed as surrender by the Presbyterian church. Instead ii was the forerunner of surrender by the seminary. The directors are almost unanimous in holding that as the sem- mary is of Presbyterian origin. and is essentially a Presbyterian institution, 1t ought to teach none other than Presbyterian doctrines.
 A TWENTY YEARS WAR.
 The trouble between the seminary and the church for more than twenty years since the trial and suspension of pr. Briggs, is expected to be end- ed under the new plan. Teachers who cannot subscribe to what are ca1l- ed the "essentials'' will be made to see is not expected to expel or suspend any of them. Those who do not be- lieve will be shown the incongruity of teaching future presbyters beliefs they may not preach and unsettlins the standards of the denomination. Such teachers are expected to leave of their own motion.
 
 sembly consists of Dr. John F. Carson. of Brooklyn; Dr. David G. Wylie and pr. William H. Foulkes, of Manhat- tan; $. $. Palmer, of Columbus, and Dr. John R. Davies, of Philadelphia. ministers; and Elders, L. H. Sever ance. of Cleveland; Judge Harry V. Freeman, of Chicago; Elisha H. Per kins of Baltimore, and w. E. Settle of. Kentucky.
 DR. wYLIE EXPLAINS
 pr. Wylie refused to-day to say that changes in the faculty of the seminary were to be proposed by the committee. He said that it. would be unwise to discuss action which might or might not, be taken by the com mittee.
 What, then, does your resolution mean?" he was asked. He replied, guardedly:
 It means that the Presbytery of New York is practically a unit in its at tachment to the Presbyterian church and to the standards of the church. It means that practically all the direc- tors and faculty of Union Seminary are not only members or ministers of the church, and born in it, but attach ed to it.
 It means that without the surren- der of any vital principle, or doctrine of evangelical Christianity, there is a strong desire without unnecessary de- bate, that all strife should cease and that the Christian men of the church in New York city are anxious to sum- mon all the forces to meet in battle the forces of evil and to solve the problems of this great metropolis that are simply overwhelming in their im- portance.
 ROOM IN UNITARIAN BODY.
 pr. Wylie explained that there might be differences. for example, upon mat ters of church polity, each holding to his own method of government; but when it came to matters concerning the deity of Jesus Christ, His birth, the efficacy of His atonement, men who do not believe these things had no reason to be in a Presbyterian pulpit. He pointed out that there were many splendid men in the Unitarian church and gave the inference that the Uni- tarian church was the place for the men he had defined.
 He said he believed nothing but good could come out of the movement to be carried out in the Christian spirit but the moral and spiritual condition of this city was such that the church must agree on essentials to secure the unity which alone could give strength