Since these ecclesiastical trials the Church remains conservative, but with an increasing tendency toward liberal interpretation of stand ards. Though the General Assembly has re peatedly stressed the inerrancy of Scripture and has made belief in such inerrancy requisite of teachers in seminaries and candidates for the ministry, in 1902 the Assembly adopted a brief statement of the Reformed faith, not as a legal standard but as an interpretation of the Con fession. It repudiated the doctrine of infant damnation, insisted on the consistency of pre destination, of God's universal love, and incor porated chapters on the Holy Spirit, the love of God and missions.
During a number of past years repeated ad vances have been made looking toward a union with the Southern Presbyterian Church, but so far without success. The Southern Church, while expressing the most cordial relations to ward the Church of the North, has felt that the interests of Presbyterianism may be better con served by their holding for the present to their ecclesiastical organization.
The last few decades have been remarkable in the extension of the missionary work of the Church. Up to the time of the separation between the Old and New School, the foreign mission work was carried on by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. After the division, the Old School was estab lished as the Board of Foreign Missions — the New School continuing as the American Board.
After the reunion in 1869 the separate Board was continued, embracing all the foreign mis sion work of the Church. The extent of the foreign mission activities in 1918 is indicated by the fact that the total contributions amounted to $2,131,387. The foreign missionary work is carried on in all parts of the world.
The home missionary work was carried on in early times by a committee of the General Assembly, but in 1816 the present Board of Home Missions was organized. The total home mission contributions for 1918 was $2,268,925. Its home mission work extends from Alaska to Porto Rico. The woman's home mission work was conducted as a branch of the Board of Home Missions until 1915, when it became in corporated as a separate Board. The Minutes of the General Assembly for 1918 show a roll of 9,902 ordained ministers and 9,928 churches, with a Sabbath-school membership of 1,386,928, the number of communicants being 1,631,748.
Its contributions for all purposes in 1918 were $33,148,407. Other Boards caring for its other branches of Christian service are Education, Publication and Sabbath-school Work, Church Erection, Ministerial Relief, Freedmen and Temperance.
The development of the modern American life has given it within the last 15 years new fields of service in immigration, social work, city evangelization and country church work.
It has also in connection with it numerous schools, colleges, universities and theological seminaries. The national churches of Mexico and Brazil, both Presbyterian, have been estab lished largely through its instrumentality. It has synods in India and China, and its mission operations are carried on in all parts of the world.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church.— The origin of this branch of the Presbyterian Church is to be found in the great religious re vival which swept over Kentucky and Tennessee at the beginning of the 19th century. The de mand at that time for an additional number of ministers in that region led the Presbytery of Cumberland, in connection with the General Assembly, to license and ordain a number of young men of the Presbyterian Church, who had not received the required classical and theological training, for the gospel ministry. This proceeding was contrary to the rules and traditions of the Church, and was strenuously opposed by those who stood for the old ecclesiastical order, The Synod of Kentucky refused to sanction the acts of the Presbytery, and this decision was finally confirmed in part by the General Assembly. There were also among those engaged in this controversy some divergencies in doctrinal belief, especially with reference to what were claimed to be the fatal istic teachings of the Confession of Faith. The result was the withdrawal of those who were dissatisfied, and the formation of an in dependent presbytery, called the Presbytery of Cumberland. Those who organized it recog nized as their standard of doctrine the Confes sion of Faith of the Presbyterian Church, but made provision for those who objected that fatalism was taught in it. The growth of this Presbytery was rapid. In three years it grew into a synod, composed of three presbyteries, and numbering 60 churches.