Year: 1869




New York after all is not an irreligious city.
We welcome our friends. We are disposed to
be agreeable. This does not fully state the
case. We mean to be, and we are, civil, hos
pitable and kind. The month of May has
always brought to US crowds of strangers.
The strangers as general rule have been
more or less religious. They have come in
religious name and under religious connec-
tion. We have never been indifferent to the
cause of progress; and as we have always
thought that the cause Of progress had to do
with religion we have ever been attentive to
the latest development Of the religious princi-
pie. In New York the great religious develop
ment of the hour has close and intimate con-
nection with Presbyterianism.


The fact is suggestive. When we remember
that we have here representatives OF all the
nationalities who took part in the great refor-
nation struggle we do not wonder that the
United States of America should, within her
borders, see revived all the questions and feel
the force OF all the troubles which for many
years antedate the Reformation. We have in
q
gious principle which no nation of the past
ever knew and which no nation of the past
ever dreamed was possible. We have Catho-
lies by the million, Of the purest type, men
and women, philosophers aud others, who
are willing TO pin their faith to the
doctrine that the fisherman Of Galilee, Peter
by name, was the first occupant of the See of
Rome. We have Protestants by the million
who call this nonsense, who are prepared even
to 90 further and call it a swindle and fib.
We have another class who are also to be
counted by the million and who will not have
1t that they are either Catholics or Protestants,
but who have a lingering liking to the name Of
Christian. We have yet another class, too
numerous and too thoughtful to be overlooked,
a class which is religious and yet not Christian,
class which is highly respectable, which goes
in for all the nobler outcomes of what is called
modern progress, but which insists that reason
and faith must go hand in hand. In no coun-
| try in the world is there so large develop
ment Of the religious principle as there now is
4 in the United States of America, and it is but
! just to conclude that in no country in the
world has the religious principle so fair a
| chance OF an honest outcome as il has in this
country. Here We have the mother church.
| Herr, too. we have all the scctarians, from the
Protestant Episcopaians represented by DR..
Dix, rector of Trinity, who ia evidently sorry
| that he has lost all his chances of being car
dnal and Pope maker, down to Brigham
Young, who is resolved, in spite Of Jesus
Christ and in spite Of st. Peter, to be a SECOND
and grander Mohammed. New York city
is the modern Jerusalem. This is the montl
during which the tribes come up To-day the
tribe which is most powerfully represented IL
not the tribe of judah, or the tribe of Levi, OF
the tribe of Mohammed, or the tribe Of Gran
mer. tits rather the tribe Of Luther, Of Calvin
Of John Knox. The Presbyterians are her
to-day in full blast. We bid them welcome
and we wish them all success.


We have been glad to no tice that during tn
course of the past week some progress ha
been made in a direction which commands tn
sympathy Of the American people and of th
world, and which from all quarters compel
the wish, ''God speed you" We must b
allowed, however, to say that, much as W
commend the union spirit, and much as we ar
willing TO honor the two Presbyterian Assem-
blies for the course they have entered upo
and for the conduct they have exhibited, W
doubt whether union on large scale is com
patiblo with Presbyterian principles. Dvisiv'