Pocahontas County History Preservation, Digitization, Community

May, 1873, Little Rock, Arkansas

By way of illustration I will mention one other well remembered incidence on record in my diary: At the fall meeting of the Lexington Presbytery in 1872, at the instance of Rev. S. R. Bowman, D.D., I was elected as one of the four commissioners to the General Assembly to meet at Little Rock, Arkansas, May 1873. The Assembly was opened one Thursday morning and on Saturday afternoon following, prompted by a seemingly irresistible sense of duty, I attempted to read a paper I had prepared with prayerful care, which was to this effect:

Whereas the General Assembly, North, has recognized our separate existence and has expressed an earnest desire to be on friendly relations with ours on principles of love, honor, and mutual respect, and to that end did appoint a committee of persons highly acceptable to us, and to remove all scruples on our part in regard to receiving and treating with said committee, emphatically reaffirmed a joint resolution previously adopted that no rule or precedent should be valid, but all null and void, unless reaffirmed by the united bodies;

Whereas, said committee was received and heard with marked courtesy, thus showing to the world that notwithstanding the position occupied by us as sole witnesses of the cross of Christ as witnesses for the crown rights of Jesus Christ as our King we virtually assented that scruples, barring the correspondence contemplated were removed;

And whereas, a Committee of Conference was appointed by the Assembly, South, of 1870, charged with instructions that virtually prejudged the questions now pending which instructions have deprived us of a most timely, effective and legitimate opportunity for bearing our testimony to the world and to our former brethren and made us appear to a needless disadvantage before those whom we desire our testimony to reach and which render us more and more liable to be misunderstood and the luster and force of our testimony liable to be sadly dimmed in all subsequent history;

And Whereas, the General Assembly, North, in withdrawing their committee in consequence of said instructions expressed their readiness to respond to any motion on our part to secure adjustment of the difficulties between us on principles of love, honor, and mutual respect;

Therefore, Be it resolved, that a committee consisting of five ministers and four ruling elders be appointed by this Assembly to meet and confer with a similar committee to be appointed by the General Assembly, North, in regard to the amicable settlement of all existing difficulties, and the opening of a friendly correspondence between the Northern and Southern Churches.

Resolved, 2nd, That said committee consist as far as possible of the same persons that were appointed at the Assembly of 1870, and the committee be allowed to perform its duties unencumbered with instructions, and requested to report progress to the Assembly of 1874."

Several efforts were made to prevent me from reading this paper and so I was frequently interrupted but, having all rules on my side, I maintained my place on the floor long enough to read, make some explanatory remarks, and offer a motion, which was promptly seconded, to have the paper referred to the committee on foreign correspondence. Rev. James Park made a motion to have the paper laid on the table instead of referring to a committee on correspondence. Dr. Park's motion was carried, several voting in the negative, however.

The Moderator emphatically notified the clerks and reporters to take no notice of the paper read or the explanatory remarks. Some of the ministers took it upon themselves to see that the reporters complied with the Moderator's request. A reporter sent me his card to meet him in the chapel in the rear of the auditorium. I did so. He was a very pleasant young man and was in tears at the indignity shown my paper, and said if I would say the word and give him my resolutions and an outline of my remarks he would see fair play.

In the meantime Dr. Welch, the pastor, joined us and told the reporter if he did so the Assembly would exclude him from the floor during the subsequent sessions. I had requested Dr. Richard McIlwaine to come and hear what I might say to the reporter, and as soon as Dr. Welch had his say, I said to the young man that while I appreciated his spirit and marked kindness, it was not the intention of the paper to make trouble, and for the sake of peace I would forego all my rights and would take it as a personal favor from him to pass the matter by as if it had not occurred. From the turn of affairs I had felt sorry I had ever read the paper.

That night however an agent of the Associated Press telegraphed a pretty full account to the St. Louis papers, all without my consent. On Tuesday morning I was almost dazed with surprise to see what had been printed. The explanatory remarks I had made upon reading the paper were as follows:

"This paper is designed to ascertain what relief, if any, may be expected from this General Assembly for a great and sore evil experienced by those who live on the borders of our church. It is but fair and frank to state that this paper calls in question a line of policy inaugurated and approved by some of the most beloved of our ministerial fathers and brethren. Hence it is admitted with some diffidence and it is hoped that if there is anything wrong or out of taste it will be corrected by the committee of foreign correspondence. What we wish is to take out of the hands of irresponsible parties a power for unspeakable mischief and secure the services of a number of our wisest and best men, North and South, to consider whatever questions may arise in reference to our relations. If that result can be obtained it matters not to me if every syllable of this paper be erased and a sounder form of words arranged by a wiser brother be adopted. One thing is sure, we must soon have a policy that will virtually silence irresponsible newspaper correspondents, pamphleteers, injudicious secretaries, partisan trustees of churches and schools, or the ridicule and contempt of the civilized world will mainly rest upon us. Upon us now rests the work of taking out of the hands of the injudicious and irresponsible parties great powers for mischief and putting the whole matter into the hands of the best men (North and South) to be considered and determined on the principles of love, honor, and mutual respect. We have been approached with overtures based on principles of love, honor, and mutual respect. A church that for conscientious reasons holds a conference for the sake of peace, on such principles, is becoming too good for such a sinful world as this, and it will not be long until we find it out."

I was told that it was my speech, especially the last paragraph or two, that made it so hot for me and brought about the excitement already described. Quite a number, at least a dozen of those voting in the negative would have joined me in the protest, as I had reasons to assure me, and the paper would have been placed on record. After the Assembly had adjourned I keenly regretted that the protest had not been made, so as to have had the matter before the churches a year or two before it was.

It was a truly propitious providence, as I regard it, that the Rev. D. John L. Kirkpatrick, Professor of Moral Science, Washington and Lee University, was a Commissioner of Lexington Presbytery in the Assembly of 1874. This minister in his day and generation was one of the wisest counselors and astute church parliamentarians that ever appeared in the Assemblies of the Southern Church. In the Assembly of 1874 acted favorably by making arrangements for a conference. That conference was held and in due time a plan for fraternal relations was ratified on the principles of love, honor, and mutual respect. In carrying out the arrangements agreed upon by the Assembly of 1874, it is pleasant to notice that the good genius of fraternal relations, like sovereign grace, chose some of her proudest foes on the committee to manage the negotiations, so the results were doubly assured for permanency, and to be universally, or at least, more generally satisfactory to those vitally concerned, in having the evils complained of removed at the least, virtually so and greatly palliated. And now for more than a quarter of a century, the dire influence of the irresponsibility has been to gratifying degree eliminated and the Assemblies have been moving on lines much more conductive to the peace and edification of our adherents on the border.

While I had, as it turned out, a consuming zeal concerning fraternal relations, I had no enthusiasm to speak of in reference to organic union, as it once existed, feeling, as I long have, even before the separation, that there are many respects in which our Southern home interest may flourish far better in Southern sunshine than in Northern shade.

Were ecclesiastical relations arranged somewhat as I would like to see them in the emergencies now impending I would favor a Presbyterian Federation, constituted on some such line as the following: Presbyteries with annual stated meetings; Synods coterminous with State lines, with biennial stated meetings; four Provincial Assemblies, with triennial meetings; and a Federated General Assembly, with quadrennial meetings, this Federated Assembly to be composed of Synodical Commissioners; and all these bodies having provisos for special meetings during the interim respectively when felt to be needed. As to the Provincial Assembly I would, with becoming modesty, hint that I would favor an organization the Provincial Assembly of the North Atlantic compromising the states east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio; the Provincial Assembly of the South Atlantic consisting of the States south of the Ohio River east of the Mississippi; Provincial Assembly of the Interior between the Mississippi and the Great Divide; and the Provincial Assembly of the Pacific between the Great Divide and the Pacific Ocean. All to be constituted of Presbyterial commissioners.

Then as a bond of union and a means of concentrated action on enterprises of general interest, I would favor of Federal General Assembly with quadrennial stated meetings to be composed of Synodical commissioners on a ratio of representation that may prove acceptable to a consensus of the Synods.

As pertinent to the subject under consideration it may be remarked that in the whole course of ecclesiastical and political history there has been nothing more effective in causing agitations and revolutions than the formulating and the using of cast iron rules in the much avowed interests of peace, harmony, and outward conformity, thereby opposing or precluding flexibly wise adoption of unchanging principles to changing circumstances, which are the inevitable concomitants of progressive material civilization and the ever widening scope of intellectual apprehensions in virtue or the wisdom that accumulates from period to period. But there are unchangeable principles, if wisely and flexibly applied, that tend to keep all things in decency and in order.

This statement may be disputed and the whole universe of logical experts in polemics are challenged to dispute it. A statement by disputed by a vast array of ipsi dixits, but that does not imply that it is intrinsically refuted. As for my part, I am freely persuaded that were the forces of American Presbyterianism aligned somewhat in the way indicated there would be a very pleasing retrenchment in the expenditure of funds needed for running the mere machinery of the national Presbyterianism while a marvelous increase of revenues for home evangelization, and for foreign mission enterprises over the world at large might be reasonably anticipated.