Volume 25 / Part 3 — ALBA’S DREAM. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” ETC. PART III. (continued 5)

“Meanwhile,” says the Scotsman, “what with choking 'frogs’ and covering up disputable subjects, the appearance of a complete, if not a completely beautiful, harmony was unquestionably produced. But it is only right to warn the Pan-Presbyterians that if they leave us with the notion that, because all is peaceful now, unity is established, they are the victims of a delusion. They may depart to their Swiss hamlets or their Transatlantic cities with psalm-tunes sounding peace within Jerusalem ringing in their ears, and imagine that after this most refreshing time the millennium has come when Dr. Phin and Dr. Blaikie will lie down together, and Dr. Marcus Dods and Dr. Moody Stewart will kiss each other. But, alas! shortly after they have told their deeply-affected flocks at home of the harmony which prevails in Bible-loving Scotland, some morning when Dr. Rufus Choate examines his Chicago Trumpet, and Dr. Brunnelhanner lays down his meerschaum to take up his paper, they will find that all the old dissensions have broken out again with alarming violence; that ministers who agreed on a platform of wood can agree upon no other; that Dr. Blaikie has attacked Establishments from love of their members, and has Dr. Pirie’s head in Chancery; that Dr. Phin has a new scheme to 'dish’ the Dissenters; that those who led the devotions are now leading the fray; that those who were at peace are not on speaking terms, or on terms in speaking which are very bad indeed; while those who lauded the agreement between confessions cannot agree amongst themselves as to what 852these confessions mean to say. The visit of the Pan-Presbyterians may, after all, share the fate that generally overtakes the other numerous excursionists who appear among us about this season. For the moment we may be struck by their numbers and their banners with their strange devices, and be moved to the heart, or even deeper, by their bass-drum and their instruments of brass; but when they have gone, if any memory of them remains, it is only of something that was loud and singular, but what it was or what it did there is nothing palpable to show.”

The Pan-Presbyterians repeated very often that, while they did not expect, or even desire, to effect “organic unity” between their various sects—that unity being, in their opinion, opposed to the will of God—they were, all the same, “one in spirit and in sympathy.” But the hollowness of even this pretence was manifested when an attempt was made to induce them to unite in what they call “partaking of the Lord’s Supper.” Toward the close of the council it was announced that “Dr. Moody Stewart and his session invited the members of council to communion at half-past twelve on Saturday.” Now, from a Catholic, or “Romanist,” point of view, it is rather surprising that a convention of eminent Christian ministers, assembled for what they professed to regard as the most important purposes, should have already spent several days without performing this supreme act of Christian devotion. But Pan-Presbyterian ways are not as our ways. Nevertheless, one would have supposed that, being thus invited to do what they had neglected, they would at least have received the invitation kindly. On the contrary, a most unhappy scene followed. The Orthodox Pan-Presbyterians were willing to talk with their unorthodox colleagues; they would eat luncheons with them, make speeches and read papers to them, and even listen to their speeches and papers in return; but when it came to “partaking of the sacrament” with them, they would not do it at any price. Dr. Phin at once protested against the idea that he, for one, could thus be yoked unevenly with unbelievers. “He happened to entertain certain old-fashioned ideas with respect to the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper” which would prevent him from joining in it unless he knew his company. For instance, there should be “the fencing of the tables”; and this fencing would surely shut out either the sheep or the goats. The “fencing of the tables,” it appears, is a curious custom prevalent in Scotland, and may be thus explained: an invitation to “the communion” is given, and then every one who wishes to receive it is scared off either by terrific denunciations of the awful guilt incurred by those who partake unworthily, or is compelled to pass a severe competitive examination as to the soundness of his faith and his acceptance of the “Standards.” Dr. Phin was, no doubt, correct in supposing that the application of these tests would produce unpleasant results, and his conscience would not permit him to assist at a communion where they were not applied. Dr. Begg took the same view, and “regretted that the invitation had been given.” The chairman—who on this occasion happened to be Dr. Ormiston, of New York—sought to get over the difficulty by suggesting that “it would be understood that nobody was committed except the gentlemen who took part in it,” and he added the remarkable declaration that “as members of council not 853one of them had any responsibility to the weight of a hair.” A lay member “protested against any administration of free communion in connection with the council”; and Dr. Blaikie said the committee had “taken every precaution that the council should not be committed in any way.” With this assurance the subject “was allowed to drop,” and when the time for the communion arrived only one hundred and thirty of the three hundred and twenty-five Pan-Presbyterians presented themselves to receive it—and among these neither Dr. Phin nor Dr. Begg was seen.

The Continental Pan-Presbyterians made a pitiful show for themselves during the council. Few of them could speak English; and the linguistic accomplishments of the majority of their colleagues being limited, they were compelled, when they spoke at all, to express themselves through an interpreter, which is not generally an exhilarating process. One of the French delegates said there were forty Presbyterian congregations in France without pastors, and he suggested that a collection might be made to aid in hiring men to fill these vacancies; but this hint was not taken. A volunteer member from Berlin read a sensible paper upon “missions,” in which he ridiculed the present system of Protestant missions, and said that their only fruits were the inculcation of hypocrisy and of pauperism among the so-called converts. On this same subject, by the way, one of the members put forth the novel idea that the conversion of one Jew was worth more than the salvation of a hundred pagans. Dr. Hoedemaker, of Amsterdam, said that the Presbyterians there had long been poisoned with the virus of rationalism, and that forty years ago “there were very few who preached the living Christ in his church”; but now, he hoped, there was some improvement. M. Decoppet, of the French Presbyterian body, complained that the sect could make no progress there, “because they were not allowed by the law to give a tract on the street or to deliver public lectures”; but still he was confident that “France would soon become a Protestant nation”—by the aid of M. Gambetta and the Reds, we presume. The representative of the Waldensian heretics apologized for the bad character of some of its ministers, but said that as fast as the false shepherds were detected they were expelled from the fold.

Politeness, perhaps, would command us to express our acknowledgments of certain courteous, sensible, and truthful things which were said about the church—as, for example, that “she was the mother of infidelity” and the fountain and origin of all civil, moral, and religious evil. But, on the whole, we think our readers will have had enough of the Pan-Presbyterians. Dr. Begg, at the last meeting of the council, said that “they saw the shadow of the great eclipse of Romanism again cast over the country.” We take this to be the Beggonian method of expressing the fact that the few Christians who remain in Scotland are on the way to return to the church of their forefathers—the church which civilized and Christianized Scotland, and which had the unhappiness to nurture in her bosom the apostate priest who was the father of Scotch Presbyterianism. Dr. Begg is not an infallible prophet, but such events as the Pan-Presbyterian council are calculated to hasten the event which he predicts. For the 854council has shown that the Presbyterian Church throughout the world, as represented by its chosen men, is undermined by infidelity, and that its existence, in their opinion, depends upon concealing this fact and pretending that no one has the right to proclaim it.