SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.

539

the rebellion, and their views on the subject of slavery; and before admission, to confess their sin and forsake their error, if their action and views did not accord with the assembly's testimony.

Third-Ordering church sessions to examine all applicants for church membership from the Southern States, concerning their conduct and principles on the points above specified, and to refuse them admission on the same ground.

Fourth-Requiring presbyteries to erase from their rolls, after the expiration of a certain time, any minister or ministers who may have fled or been sent by civil or military authority beyond the jurisdiction of the United States during the civil war, unless such give satisfactory evidence of repentance.

A protest was put forth to this, called a "declaration and testimony against the erroneous and heretical doctrines and practices which have obtained and been propagated in the Presbyterian Church in the United States in the last five years." This was signed by quite a number. In the synod at Louisville in 1865, an attempt was made to prevent the admission to seats of such signers, which was defeated by a vote of one hundred and seven to twenty-two. A resolution disapproving the act of the assembly was carried by a vote of seventy-six to twenty-two. In the assembly of 1866, at St. Louis, the delegate commissioners from Kentucky who had signed the "declaration and testimony" were excluded from their seats by the action of the body and summoned to appear before it at its next session. When the Kentucky Synod met at Henderson the same year, it ignored this order of the assembly, and openly, upon its records, refused to recognize the validity of its acts with reference to the protesting "declaration and testimony" signers. It then proceeded to appoint a committee on missions to raise money for their mission uses, to request its ministers to act as evangelists, and to express the desire and intent to co-operate with all churches and synods North and South who might disapprove of the proscriptive action of the assembly. At the meeting of the assembly in 1867, the commissioners of the synod and presbyteries so dissenting were again refused seats, and were declared to be "in no sense true and lawful synod and presbyteries in connection with, and under the care and authority of, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States."

The termination of these dissensions and alienations was the separation of the declaration and testimony element in Kentucky and a union with the Southern Assembly, which met at Mobile in May, 1869. In 1871, there were reported seventy-eight ministers, one hundred and twenty-six churches, and seventy-six hundred members for the Southern Church in Kentucky. Naturally, the distinguishing title of "Northern" and "Southern" attached to two bodies so separated upon purely sectional and political issues. Those who resisted the declaration and testimony protest and renunciation remained firm in their loyalty to the assembly. After the division of the synod at Henderson, in 1866, this party proceeded to the work of the reorganization and perfection of its plans, in accord with the jurisdiction of the old

SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.

541

assembly. An effort was made toward re-union, but in October, 1867, the loyal synod, meeting at Covington, expressed its "decided opposition to said union upon the basis proposed by the joint committee of the general assemblies of the two bodies, which is particularly objectionable." In 1871, the respective strength of this division

of the church in Kentucky was reported at fifty ministers and fifty-seven hundred and twenty-one members. In this historic controversy, the loyal element was led by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, Dr. E. P. Humphrey, and others, and the protesting party mainly by Drs. R. L. Breck, Stuart Robinson, S. R. Wilson, Gelon H. Rout, Thomas A. Bracken, and associates.

REV. T. A. BRACKEN, D. D.

The contending sections of the great Presbyterian body had, after the heat of long controversy, alienated and congealed into two separate and distinct organizations, differing, it appears, not substantially in the doctrines and faith and forms of the old orthodox body, but irreconcilably upon an intrusive political animus and authority, a disturbing element in the denominational Troy of peace, utterly foreign to the nature and mission of the immaculate religion professed by all Christ's followers. The strife drifted into the courts, and of the angry and stubborn contentions that characterized the issues none attracted more attention within and without the church than the litigation over the question of common or exclusive rights in the proprietorship and use of Centre College. The claims of the old assembly evidently taking precedence, the young and vigorous infant organization, just sprung from her vexed loins, at once, and with powerful energy, assumed all the functions of independent denominational existence, and prepared to meet its extensive wants. Chief among these wants was felt the need of a leading institution of learning.

Central University.-The rise of this young and vigorous institution to its present commanding position, within little more than a single decade of corporate existence, may be traced to the confluence of two movements, each of which was made in the interests of higher education in Kentucky. The first of these movements was an ecclesiastical one, and was the result of a conference of committees from the two synods of Kentucky, held in Lexington in November, 1870.

The conference proved barren of practical results. The Southern Synod, convinced of the futility of all further efforts to secure a recognition of any property rights in Centre College, and wearied with long years of litigation

in the civil courts, gave up all hope of reinstatement in the possession of this time-honored institution, and began to bend all its energies toward the establishment of another.

At the next meeting of the synod, in November, 1871, resolutions were introduced by Dr. Stuart Robinson, and passed by the synod, looking to the immediate endowment and equipment of a college upon the same plan and with the same scope as the one just lost to the Southern church.

But a higher conception and aim, and a new movement, arose out of the general conviction in the minds of men of intelligence, wealth, and culture, that the need was of a university of the highest order and upon the most liberal scale.

This conviction found expression in a convention held in the city of Lexington on the 7th and 8th days of May, 1872, the members of which, after organizing themselves into a permanent association, addressed a memorial to the Synod of Kentucky, then about to assemble in the same city, urging the immediate establishment of an institution of learning, under the auspices of the synod, of the highest order and upon the broadest and most

liberal basis, and pledging to the synod the earnest co-operation of the association in an effort to establish the same. This appeal met a generous response from the synod. A plan of organization was effected, which adjusted the mutual relations of the synod and the association in the government of the institution. Popular confidence was aroused, and in an incredibly short time two hundred thousand dollars had been subscribed toward the proposed endowment of five hundred thousand dollars. A charter was procured, which vested in the donors of the endowment, and such others as they might associate with themselves, the ownership and control of the university, under the title of the Central University of Kentucky. This proprietary association, which is known as the Alumni Association of Central University, fills its own vacancies and elects its own successors from among the alumni of the institution and its liberal benefactors, thus forever keeping the university under the control of those who have the highest interest in its welfare. Its government and the management of its funds are entrusted to the chancellor and fifteen curators, two-thirds of whom, under the charter, must be members of the alumni association.

Richmond, the county seat of Madison county, in the midst of a beau

THE FIRST SESSION.

543 tiful and productive portion of the bluegrass region of Kentucky, was selected for its location.

Here, on Tuesday, September 22, 1874, the university opened its first session in a large and commodious building, that had just been erected in the center of the spacious grounds, commanding a view of the country for many miles, and of the mountains nearly or quite to the Tennessee and Virginia lines.

Rev. R. L. Breck was the first chancellor, and was supported by an able board, conspicuous in which, for his in

terest and zeal, was the lamented S. P. Walters, of Richmond. In the struggles of the Presbyterian church, Dr. Breck was an early leader. Of strong convictions, of unwavering courage, and devoted to the interests of Church and State, he was ever ready to contend for what he deemed the truth and right. The best energies of his life were given to Central University, and to him, while in this service, was its founding mainly due. Life, health, and personal considerations were sacrificed in its interests. Failing health necessitated his resignation as chancellor and seeking its restoration in the milder climate of California. Dr. Breck is a son of Hon. Daniel Breck, whose wife was a daughter of General Levi Todd, and was born at Richmond, May 8, 1827. He graduated at Centre College, and studied theology at Alleghany and Princeton. His ministry was in Kentucky, Macon (Georgia), and New Albany until the war; since 1865, at Richmond, Kentucky, and in California.

Three of the four colleges contemplated under the charter opened at this time.

Notwithstanding the favorable auspices under which the university was inaugurated, it soon began to encounter waves of financial trouble. Difficulty was experienced in collecting the subscriptions. The chancellor, Dr. Breck, resigned his important post. Dr. Pratt also resigned the presidency of the College of Letters. The College of Law suspended for want of proper support. The situation was critical, and many of the friends of the university became timorous as to its power to survive. Just then the attention of the alumni association and of the synod was called to Rev. L. H. Blanton, of Paris, Kentucky, a comparatively young man, but of ripe scholarship and rare executive ability, and already recognized as one of the foremost educators of the State. He was called to the chancellorship, and Rev. J. V. Logan, D. D., synod's professor of ethics, was promoted to the vacant