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further, all things considered, it appears to be the most desirable plan of reduction which has been developed for the consideration of the church, for the following reasons:

I. It gives a moderate figure for the General Assembly at the outset-360.

The last General Assembly sent down an overture to start beyond 380; and the committee on church polity recommended an overture which would begin a General Assembly with 392. It is only that fitness of things commending itself to every one which thus gives expression to the general belief, that the dignity of the Assembly will not permit it to fall numerically below a Synod; the last minutes of the Synod of New Jersey report members present, 316.

2. It gives a system which continues the distribution of commissioners, with but a single exception, as they are now distributed; and hence lies so nearly in the old paths that but a portion of the presbyteries are thrown out of their accustomed mode of reckoning, by a minister and an elder.

3. It does not strain the system of representation to create that exception, but discovers an existing and average working exception, which it desires to secure against the possibilities of a variable quantity, and fix as a certainly constant quantity by a legal form,

4. It finds such a large portion of the exception in the older and stronger States, that the younger and weaker States have the excepted presbyteries generously shared with them.

5. It so classifies the presbyteries, that those which have an appearance to the casual observer of excessive representation are so far behind the extreme limit which would entitle them to more, that the future increase will mainly come from the gradual development of the smaller presbyteries.

6. It makes a just distinction between the smaller presbyteries on our own soil, and those on foreign soil. In order that the General Assembly shall continue to "consist as nearly as possible of an equal number of bishops and elders,' it requires the smaller home presbyteries to alternate their commissioners between a minister and an elder. In order to avoid binding them up to an impossibility, it excepts the smaller foreign presbyteries from rigid alternation. The equity of this liberty will be seen by looking over the min

utes for successive years, to find that when our foreign presbyteries send commissioners they always send a minister, and to require them to alternate between a minister and an elder would practically exclude them from one-half their representation; because, in foreign fields they have not the proper English-speaking material for eldership to send.

7. It makes the present approximate equality of representation very much more nearly equable, and hence fulfills Paul's injunction to the Philippians-ii : 4: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

8. It associates an equable relation of communicants with this equable representation of ministers, so that communicants and their presbyteries, taken together, exhibit a common relation to the presbyterial representation. This is strikingly evident in the class of presbyteries and communicants marked [D.] While our method of representation has never been based on any reference to this, it is nevertheless desirable to consider it an advantage where it naturally accompanies a distribution which is consonant with established usage.

9. It secures the General Assembly from a sudden expansion, and holds it to such a gradual growth, that this system is not likely to require a change for a long time to come.

We have been working on our present grade of 24 and 48 since 1833, which is 44 years. There are but 23 years to the close of this century—and if this plan will carry us there, it will have done a good work. But if any one has such an insight into the future development of the church as to enable him to say positively that his plan will not last so long, we can still say that we need a good system of reduction immediately, and that this is not only shown to be an excellent plan, but it gives a good prospect of continuing effective for at least a reasonable time.

Moreover, by reference to the dates of the changes of the ratio of representation, the earlier changes were made more frequently. The first change was made in 1819, and the next in 1826, running only seven years; the next change in 1833, another seven years. So that heretofore it has been found expedient to change so soon as there was an imperative call for it.

If the suggestion is made, that an expected union with the

Presbyterian Church South should defer a new basis of representation, it is yet true that the present emergency requires an immediate reduction of numbers, which should not be uncomfortably carried under a constant protest up to the point of union, when, humanly speaking, the union is so largely prospective. If that union is ever consummated-which we sincerely desire at the right time-no present change can possibly interfere with a free and full consideration of that new state of things which will then call for a new adjustment.

Therefore, let the General Assembly be overtured, “Shall the Form of Government, chapter xii, section ii, be changed to read thus: The General Assembly shall consist, as nearly as possible, of an equal number of bishops and elders, chosen by the presbyteries in the following manner, viz. : Each presbytery consisting of not more than twenty ministers shall send one representative, who must be alternately a minister and an elder, from the first half of these presbyteries in alphabetical order, and alternately an elder and a minister from the second half in alphabetical order-except that each such foreign presbytery may send a minister or an elder; and each presbytery consisting of more than twenty ministers shall send one minister and one elder; and each presbytery consisting of more than forty ministers shall send two ministers and two elders; and in the like proportion of one minister and one elder for every additional twenty ministers in any presbytery, and these delegates so appointed shall be styled, Commissioners to the General Assembly.""

NOTE.

The Minutes of 1875 have been used throughout, because this paper was written before the Minutes for 1876 were published. The relation of the presbyteries in the meanwhile has changed to the following extent, viz. Pp. 75 and 76 of the last Minutes show that the General Assembly granted the request of the presbytery of Oregon, as indicated by Overture No. 6, and erected a new synod, under the name of the Synod of Columbia, with three presbyteries, Oregon, Puget Sound, and South Oregon. There will now seem to be three more presbyteries to call for representation. But since these three will fall within the exception of the present plan, they will each send one commissioner, and increase the Assembly by three. However, instead of this case of expansion bringing three new presbyteries, it divides the original presbytery of Oregon into these three; therefore it makes

only two new ones. Moreover, it does not even increase the General Assembly by two commissioners, because, by our plan, the old presbytery was entitled to two, and in this divided state to but one; which leaves them three against their former two, an united increase of only one.

But p. 77 of the same Minutes states, that "The presbytery of Southern Minnesota has been disbanded." This counterbalances the increase of the Assembly by the one commissioner from Oregon, and leaves the number as it stands in our calculation from the Minutes of 1875.

Art. IV. PROFESSOR HENRY BOYNTON SMITH.

By MARVIN R. VINCENT, New York.

THE lesson of consecrated intellect is one which needs to be emphasized in the hearing of this age. The current sentiment of our time tends altogether too strongly to regard the possession of great mental endowments and broad culture, as the best of reasons for despising faith, and for withholding consecration from all but selfish ends. When, therefore, a representative scholar and thinker gives faith the first place in his life, and holds that knowledge

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when faith is the light of his learning and the master-key of his logic, it is well to tell the story to those who habitually group faith with weakness, and consecration with fanaticism. It is well for such to know that thought so vigorous and farreaching, culture so finely toned, and energy so effectively guided, have taken their mightiest impulse and their warmest glow from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Such a lesson is the life of him in whom our church has been so lately called to mourn the loss of her foremost scholar-HENRY BOYNTON SMITH.

Professor Smith was born in Portland, Maine, on the 21st

of November, 1815. He completed his collegiate studies at Bowdoin College in 1834, and was appointed tutor almost immediately upon his graduation. His theological studies were begun at Bangor and Andover. While at Bangor, his first article appeared in the Maine Monthly Magazine, for August, 1836, in the shape of a review of a shallow pamphlet, by one Lieutenant Roswell Park, entitled Outline of Philoso phy. The "Outline" was an ambitious attempt at a scientific classification of human knowledge; and the title-page was adorned with the picture of a tree, in which this classification was embodied under the figure of branches labeled Periphysics, Geotics, Prostheotics, Perichronics, etc. In the same year appeared an article from his pen in the Literary and Theological Review, edited by Dr. Leonard Woods, Jr., on Moral Reform Societies. In the student's vigorous handling of these themes, it is not difficult to detect the germinal characteristics of the riper scholar. In the impatience of false method, the ready detection of fallacy, the facility of dissection, and the fine, genial humor, are foreshadowed the reviewer of Strauss. The latter of the two articles is noticeable for its exposure of the subtle error which lurks in so many later schemes of reform-the assumption of the insufficiency of the gospel for its own peculiar work.

The studies begun at Andover and Bangor were continued at Berlin and Halle. His intellect, naturally large of grasp and broad in its ideal of culture, found its true and congenial place in the atmosphere of German scholarship; and those later studies confirmed and developed that breadth of scope, that critical accuracy, that laborious patience in study, which made him the admiration of even German thinkers, and which marked him the more strongly from their comparative rarity among the American students of that day.

His estimate of German theology, formed from his personal contact with its best exponents, was singularly discriminating. Not blind to its defects, his whole generous nature went out in sympathy with the struggle through which it was taking shape in the minds of "the most philosophical and the most Christian scholars of Germany." His appreciation and his sympathy alike found expression in his address before the Porter Rhetorical Society of Andover, in 1849: "In the name of the repub

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