In 1880 the Synod of Kentucky entered upon the pioneer enterprise of synodical evangelism. Not less than eight or ten synods have subse quently inaugurated some form of synodical work. Pastors and people have been generally faithful and so preached Christ.
(5) Missions of the Church. The develop ment of the Church's agencies has also been grati fying. Foreign Missions have had a large place in the heart of the Church. It has planted sta tions in China, Italy, the United States of Colom bia, Brazil, Mexico, Greece, Japan, the Congo Free State, Cuba, and Corea. In its several mis sions it has to-day about one hundred and fifty ordained and unordained missionaries, and can look on a total of three thousand one hundred and fifty-six communicants and an immense effect of a general kind predisposing heathendom to re ceive Christianity.
Home Missions have also had a large place. The general objects for which the Assembly's Executive Committee has labored, are: (1) To aid feeble churches in support of their pastors and to secure a competency to every laboring min ister. (2) To aid in the support of missionaries and evangelists. (3) To assist weak churches in obtaining suitable edifices in which to worship. (4) To assist laborers in getting from one field to another when they are without the means of do ing this of themselves. (5) To raise and disburse an invalid fund. This committee took oversight also of the work among the negroes till 189t when the Executive Committee of Colored Evan gelization was established.
(6) The Ministry. The Church has main tained a highly educated ministry. Its plan for securing such a ministry, styled variously as "a beneficiary or eleemosynary," or "stipendiary" plan, is a good scheme if faithfully carried out by the presbyteries; but seems to be tolerated only because of the necessity for some such scheme. The Church has five good theological schools un der its care, one being the Tuscaloosa Institute for negroes, a still greater number of colleges and universities, besides academies.
(7) Publishing Agencies. The Publication Committee, located at Richmond, Va., has done a most important work. A number of able jour nals advocate the principles and give informa tion concerning the work of the Church.
(8) Adherence to Principles. So much for the growth of the Church. A word now with ref erence to the way in which it has stood by its principles. The Church has remained true to the Calvinism of its creed. It is, perhaps, more thor
oughly Calvinistic than in 1866. The changes in polity have been considerable. They have sprung from a more solid conviction of jure divino Pres byterianism, and have resulted in a clearer state ment of the ruling elder's rights and duties, and a more adequate and Scriptural exposition of the deacon's duties and relations. It has given a no ble testimony to the independence of Church and State. In all its formal and well-considered views of the subject from 1861 tor87o,it testified to thenon secular character of the Church and the headship of Jesus in Zion. During the war it did, indeed, falter in its testimony to the non-secular char acter of the Church ; but its falterings were tran sient inconsistencies, as formal testimonies of the time show and as sorrow for these missteps, evinced by its implicit and explicit confessions in 1866, 187o and 1876, show. This Church still holds to an inerrant Bible, and to the approva bleness of Bible morals, and opposes womanism in the official work of the Church.
How far these principles shall prevail in the future a prophet is needed to tell. The principle of Church and State ought to prevail ; and so, ac cording to the common judgment of our Church, every other one of its principles. Hence it does not ask whether they shall prevail, but whether they ought to prevail. Its action should be guided by the right rather than by the achievable.
(9) Condition of Amity. This Church would unite with others in federal union on condition of their receiving evidently con amore own standards. The Assemblies of 1893 and 1894 de clined to enter the "Federal Union between the Reformed Churches in the United States holding the Presbyterian system." It has maintained fra ternal correspondence with several ecclesiastical bodies of like faith and polity. Owing to the non-secular character of the Dutch Reformed Church, its thoroughly Calvinistic theology and Presbyterian polity, this correspondence devel oped, in 1875, into a "plan of active co-operation," in publication, home missions, foreign missions and education. In 1889 the Northern Presbyterian Church entered into a similar plan of co-operation with ours. The great body of Southern Presby terians is profoundly attached to its own princi ples, and while unchurching no evangelical body, seeks formal external union only on tl.e basis of its own creed. T. C. J.