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 HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 SYNOD OF KENTUCKY 
 
 1802-1902 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 EDW. W. C. HUMPHREY 
 
 DELIVERED October 14, 1902 
 
 AT 
 
 Lexington, Ky. 
 
 BEFORE THE SYNOD OF KENTUCKY 
 NORTH AND SOUTH
 
 ujy\ 
 
 a 
 
 m7 
 
 Synod of Kentucky 
 
 1802-1902. 
 
 o 
 
 |UR Synod of Kentucky was Ijorn in a sea of 
 trouble, in the dark nighttime of a period 
 wherein all that is true and vital in religion seemed 
 about to disappear. 
 
 A brave and honest look out over the waters of 
 ^ that stormy sea, and into the hidden recesses of 
 "^ that dark and troubled time, is demanded by the 
 >« truth, and is the only way whereby we can obtain 
 ^ a clear conception of what our Synod has suffered 
 ^ and endured, has done and accomplished. 
 ^ The descendants of an old people, from an old 
 
 world, were drawn into a new country to build up 
 ^ a new commonwealth. 
 
 in They were called ui)on to face dangers and hard- 
 
 3. ships with that unfaltering courage and tenacity 
 z which has time and again brought into life, a vigor- 
 ous and springing life, some of the greatest qualities 
 which have ever been bestowed upon the children 
 O of men. 
 
 ^ But the way was long and hard, the struggle 
 
 O fierce and bloody. Passions aroused by a pro- 
 03 tracted contest with veteran soldiers of England 
 uj and the cruel red men of the forest were to be 
 followed and intensified by the strife of political 
 
 parties, and a huge tide of evils engendered by the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 449097
 
 Among that people, along the Atlantic Sea- 
 board, in the closing years of that tremendous con- 
 flict, rumors began to spread themselves abroad 
 that in the West, beyond the mountains, there 
 existed a garden; almost a Garden of Eden; almost 
 a Paradise of God. 
 
 Our historian (Davidson) tells us: 
 
 "The first explorers of Kentucky spread every- 
 where, on their return, the most glowing accounts 
 of what they had seen. The luxuriance of the soil ; 
 the salubrity of the climate ; the dimpled and undu- 
 lating face of the country; the tall, waving cane 
 and native clover ; the magnificent groves of sugar- 
 tree and walnut ; the countless herds of buffalo and 
 elk; the pure and limpid brooks; the deep chan- 
 neled rivers, sweeping between precipitous cliff's of 
 limestone ; the air, loaded with fragrance ; the 
 groves, resonant with melody." 
 
 Among the publications of The Filson Club there 
 is a charming book entitled "The Wilderness 
 Road," wherein Mr. Thos. Speed gives an account 
 of the immigration which poured into Kentucky in 
 the evening hours of the eighteenth century, and in 
 the morning watch of the nineteenth ; together with 
 a full description of the routes along which the 
 human rivers ran. 
 
 That immigration, when its history is made 
 known, will appear more like romance than reality; 
 for unparalleled it remains to this day, in spite of 
 all the wonderful things which we have witnessed 
 in this our wonderful land.
 
 Daniel Boone made liis first journey of explora- 
 tion into Kentucky in 17(ii(. In 1775 lie moved his 
 own and five other families thitlicr. 
 
 In 1783 the population numbered 12, ()()() settlers; 
 in 1784, 2(),()()(); in 1790, 73,()()(); in ISOO, 210,()()(); 
 and by 1820, 505,000 souls had found a home amid 
 the forests and by the rivers of that delightful 
 region. 
 
 And thus, over all dangers, difficulties, trials, 
 and hardships, the human tide flowed on. 
 
 Originally a i)art of Fincastle County, Virginia, 
 the "Region" of Kentucky, was set apart as a 
 separate county called Kentucky, in 1775; and as a 
 "District," with three counties: JelTerson, Lincoln 
 and Fayette, in 1780; and was admitted into the 
 Union as a sovereign Stale on the 1st of June 17!)2, 
 only nine years after the close of our American 
 Revolution. 
 
 We can well bclie\e that the early pioneers were 
 astonished with a great astonishment wlien they 
 beheld such floods of immigration pouring along 
 the "Wilderness Road," on down tlie iiiiglily cur- 
 rent of the Ohio. To them 
 
 More wonderful it seemed 
 Than all the golden visions 
 Of all their golden dreams. 
 
 But like the Israelites of old, the immigrant 
 passed through a great and terrible wilderness, a 
 savage and relentless foe awaited him at his jour- 
 ney's end, and many eventful, and sometimes 
 disastrous, years must pass by before that immigrant
 
 host could enjoy the land which they had won, ere 
 they could 
 
 Lie down in the green meadows 
 And by the side of the waters rest. 
 
 The heart of the Bluegrass region lay 500 miles, 
 as the crow flies, from the seacoast, and fully 300 
 miles from the crest of the Allegheny Mountains. 
 In what is now West \'irginia and Eastern Kentucky 
 existed a tangled wilderness of hills and streams; 
 a barrier which no one could cross, a region covered 
 all over "as the waters cover the sea," with "never 
 ending stretches of gloomy woodland." 
 
 President Roosevelt, in a delightful book en- 
 titled "The Winning of the West," thus describes 
 that gloomy woodland : 
 
 "It was not an open forest. The underbrush 
 grew dense and rank, making a cover so thick that 
 it was in many places impenetrable; so thick that 
 it nowhere gave a chance for human eye to see as 
 far as a bow could carry. . . . Here and there it 
 was broken by a hillside glade, or by a meadow- in a 
 stream valley ; but elsewhere a man might travel 
 for weeks as if in a perpetual twilight, never once 
 able to see the sun through the interlacing twigs 
 that formed a dark canopy over his head." 
 
 Now, as the great rivers of water, on their way 
 to the sea, when thrown back by the mountains, 
 must run along the valleys to find a gap where they 
 can break through the ranges, so these streams of 
 human life, longing for and striving to reach that 
 far-famed region in the West, were forced to run
 
 around tliat harrier of mountains, far to the south 
 along the Wilderness Road, or down the Ohio River 
 on the north. 
 
 The "Old Wilderness Road" began at Phila- 
 delphia, thence by York and Lancaster, in Penn- 
 sylvania, through Hagerstown, in Maryland; thence 
 clear up the renowned Valley of Virginia, through 
 Staunton, Lexington and Abingdon ; thence by way 
 of the Powell Valley through CuniV)erland Gap to 
 Crab Orchard, in Kentucky. At Crab Orchard the 
 stream divided; one part spread over the "Blue- 
 grass" region; one part pushed on to the Falls of 
 the Ohio; while still another to the southwest^ as 
 far down as the Cumberland River. So you see 
 that Middle and West Tennessee was peopled by 
 immigrants from Central Kentucky, who had made 
 their way thither V)y the Wilderness Road. 
 
 After a while the pioneers fovmd a path over the 
 Pennsylvania mountains to Redstone and Pitts- 
 burg, where flatboats were built to carry them down 
 the Ohio. Some planted their settlements at points 
 along the banks of that beautiful river ; some passed 
 on into the Region of Kentucky; while others 
 worked their way up the streams which came down 
 from the North — such as the Scioto, the Miami and 
 the Wabash. 
 
 But whichever route they followed, the hardships 
 and dangers were exhausting and severe. The river 
 route was, if anything, more dangerous than the trail 
 running through the endless forest. 
 
 From an old publication, dated May 10, 1792, 
 we learn that the most direct route from Cincinnati 
 to Philadelphia was by way of Lexington and Crab
 
 Orchard, and thence by the Wilderness Road over 
 the Cumberland Gap, and thence down the long 
 Valley of Virginia. 
 
 And so, whether along the Wilderness Road, or 
 down the swift current of the Ohio, "wherever the 
 boatman could follow the winding stream, or the 
 woodman could explore the forest "shades," the 
 hardy pioneer, battling with Nature and the red 
 Indian, each in their wildest moods, at last found a 
 habitation and a home. 
 
 The importance and bearing of these reflections 
 will become abundantly evident as we proceed 
 with this narrative. And it will appear to our 
 Synod in no small degree is due the further fact: 
 " That along the banks of all these rivers, in what- 
 ever land they flow, have been founded the hospital, 
 the orphan asylum, the refuge for the insane, the 
 fallen and the helpless, and hard by them all is 
 builded the House of God and the Gates of Heaven." 
 
 The movement of people into a new country 
 had never been without a train of evils. But 
 this overwhelming flood of immigration was attended 
 by evils of corresponding magnitude, which told 
 with tremendous force, for a long time, upon the 
 spiritual life and growth, and of course upon the 
 moral and restraining influence of religion. The 
 character of that immigration, as well as the rapidity 
 thereof, exaggerated those difticulties which always 
 confront the church in a new country; and inten- 
 sified thosewhich weredeveloped l)y the peculiarities 
 of that extraordinary migration. 
 
 Imagine a mighty human tide poured, in a few 
 years, into the dense forest of an uninhal)itcd coun-
 
 try, concerning which Mr. Roosevelt has said : 
 " U]) to the door-sills of their log huts stretched 
 the solemn and mysterious forest. There were no 
 openings to l:)reak its continuity; nothing but 
 endless leagues on leagues of shadowy, wolf-haunted 
 woodland. The great trees towered aloft till their 
 separate heads were lost in tlie mass of foliage 
 above . . . The sunlight could not penetrate the 
 roofed archway of murmuring leaves; through 
 the gray aisles of the forest men walked alwavs in 
 a kind of mid-day gloaming." 
 
 That human stream far outstripped the means 
 of grace. "The long continued absence of Sabbath 
 services, of the regular ordinances of the church 
 and of its wholesome watch and discipline." The 
 neglect of family worship, and above all of the 
 systematic instruction of the young people in sacred 
 things, fostered a spirit of reckless indifference, 
 and a low state of religious belief and practice, in 
 which the youth "grew up unimbued with religious 
 principle and imaccustomed to moral restraint." 
 (Davidson.) 
 
 When the pioneers lost, somewhere along the 
 Wilderness Road, or abandoned in the excitement 
 and danger of border life tlie faith and teaching 
 of their fathers, of course the next generation 
 grew up in ignorance and unbelief. 
 
 And the task which stared our Synod in the 
 face, the day it was born, was to redeem from their 
 evil ways the men of that new generation, lest 
 it should be said of them — the words written in 
 the good old book, in the long, long ago:
 
 "There is evil among all things that are done 
 under the sun . . . the heart of man is full of evil, 
 and madness is in their heart while they live, and 
 after that they go to the dead. 
 
 "Their love, their hatred and their envy, is now 
 perished ; neither have they any more a portion 
 forever in anything that is done under the sun." 
 
 From the point where the ^^'ilderness Road 
 entered Kentucky, at Cumberland Gap, to a point 
 on the Ohio River called Limestone (near where 
 now stands the city of Maysville) extended the 
 renowned "Warrior's Path." This was a trail 
 running through the woods and over the hills — 
 along w'hich the Northern and Southern Indians 
 passed and repassed in their forays against each 
 other. For none of these tribes dwelt in Kentucky, 
 it was a common hunting ground for all, not 
 one had any right or title therein, not one acknowl- 
 edged the right or title of any save the strongest. 
 
 So right upon the threshold of those fair lands, 
 in the region called Kentucky, ran the Warrior's 
 Path, and whosoever crossed that narrow way, 
 entered upon a contest whose annals are stained 
 with deeds of cruelty and blood. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt tells us, in the work from which 
 I have quoted: "There are many dark and bloody 
 pages in the book of border warfare, that grim and 
 iron-bound volume, wherein we read how our 
 fathers won the land we inhabit. 
 
 "The Indians were terrible in battle, and cruel 
 beyond all belief in victory. . . . The inhuman 
 love of cruelty for cruelty's sake, which marks the 
 red Indian above all other savages, rendered these
 
 wars more terriljlc tlian any others. For the 
 hideous, unnamable, unthinkable tortures practiced 
 by the red man on their captured foes and on their 
 foes' tender women and helpless cliildren are such 
 as we read of in no other struggle. ... It was 
 inevitable that such deeds should awake in the 
 breasts of the whites the grimmest, wildest spirit of 
 revenge and hatred. And when we consider the 
 excesses committed by the whites, it is only fair 
 to keep in mind the terrible provocations they 
 had endured. Mercy, pity, magnanimity to the 
 fallen could hardly be expected of the frontiersmen 
 gathered together to war against an Indian tribe. 
 Almost every man of such a band had bitter personal 
 wrongs to avenge; he was actuated by a furious 
 flame of hot anger, and goaded by memories of 
 which merely to think was madness." 
 
 These elequent words of Mr. Roosevelt disclosv 
 the fact that when the English, Scotch, the Scotch- 
 Irish and the Huguenot; who made up the great 
 bulk of that immigrant host; had once crossed 
 the Warrior's Path, they never faltered; and if they 
 grew stern and hard as they fought the warriors' 
 battle; if at times the candle of their religion grew 
 dim in the socket ; nevertheless, they never lost 
 those sterling qualities, or that deep religious con- 
 viction, which have throughout the world made 
 their work, their deeds and their fame enduring 
 and immortal. 
 
 But we must dwell for a while upon two other 
 dangers which hung like a dark cloud over our 
 Synod.
 
 12 
 
 To the demoralizing influence of border war- 
 fare must be added a universal spirit of cupidity 
 and avarice, engendered by the inflow of capital 
 and wild speculation in these Western lands. The 
 prodigality and recklessness of the land oflice pro- 
 duced an avalanche of litigation, feuds and heart- 
 burnings which lasted for a generation. It created 
 an irresistible passion for excitement ; it retarded 
 the religious growth of the people ; it gave rise to 
 an atmosphere which enveloped the whole com- 
 munity in its deadly folds. 
 
 Evils such as these would soon have run their 
 course and passed away, had not another super- 
 vened, peculiarly fitted to poison an atmosphere 
 already charged wath elements which steel the 
 human heart- against the pleading of conscience 
 and the requirement of religion. I refer to the 
 introduction and spread of that abandoned type 
 of infidelity and materialism engendered and spread 
 far and wide by the French Revolution. It was 
 but natural that the American people should have 
 accorded a most enthusiastic support to that revolu- 
 tion in its opening stages, and before its wild excesses 
 developed its true character, and before suff^ering 
 and disaster accumulated, such as call to mind that 
 old prophecy in Deuteronomy: "The Lord shall 
 send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke, in 
 all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do. 
 The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and 
 with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with 
 an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with 
 blasting and mildew, and they shall ])ursue thee 
 until thou perish."
 
 Does it not seem anomalous that among the 
 colonists on the seaboard, the men of 1776, with all 
 their strong traits of character and intellect, their 
 power to detect and separate the true from the 
 false — that in soil in such as that the most offensive 
 and radical type of infidelity ever known should 
 have taken root and grown and flourished? 
 
 But there is nothing anomalous in the fact that 
 it should have been carried unto the wilderness, 
 and there found a dwelling-place among a genera- 
 tion of men upon whom the ties of religion hung 
 loose and easy. 
 
 And, like a quick and powerful poison, it went 
 springing through the arteries and came back again 
 through the veins, loaded with moral corruption 
 and spiritual death. 
 
 There is a proverb as old as the everlasting hills 
 that "what a man believes that will he do." In 
 proportion as a man abandons his faith in God his 
 moral nature becomes enfeebled and corrujJt; and 
 vice and dissipation will reveal the tlioughts and 
 intents of the heart. 
 
 Nor is this all, the leaven of those opinions, 
 like the tares sown in the wheat, produced a harvest 
 of errors, errors old and new ; errors far-reaching 
 and vital in character; errors in doctrine and fre- 
 quent lapses in faith and practice; not only among 
 professing Christians, but even in tlie little ccjinjxiny 
 of ministers. 
 
 But David Rice, who like a monarcli of the 
 forest towered far above his fellows, gathered 
 around him a band of true men, to detect and 
 grapple with those errors in every form; and when
 
 the time came to strike they struck quick and hard. 
 Davidson tells us that at one time or other nearly 
 one-half of the ministers were subjected to church 
 censures more or less severe, some rebuked, some 
 suspended and others deposed. 
 
 The tide soon began to turn. An order of men 
 appeared, far diiferent from those who came in 
 that feverish rush over the "Wilderness Road"; 
 men who in ability, learning and spiritual power 
 gave to our Kentucky ministry an influence and 
 standing which it has never lost. 
 
 But how has it happened that the history of our 
 Synod, in the first half-century of its existence, is so 
 full of dissensions and divisions? Due in part to 
 the causes which I have mentioned, but mainly to 
 the truculent and combative character of the peo- 
 ple themselves. An intense individuality, a spirit of 
 defiant self-reliance, the wild freedom of the 
 hunter's life, the dangers and cruelty of border war- 
 fare, the isolation and loneliness of their lives gener- 
 ated an intolerance, a combativeness, a self-asser- 
 tion intensified by certain hereditary tendencies 
 among a people whose ancestors were renowned 
 for what I shall call firmness. True, they 
 accorded great respect to the opinions of other 
 people so long as those opinions coincided with 
 their own. And in matters of importance, and 
 especially in matters of religion, what they con- 
 sidered a sanctified firmness governed tlie actions 
 and thoughts of those men. 
 
 Do not think that this narrative is overdrawn 
 or that the shadows in the picture have been 
 painted in colors of too dark a luic. It rests upon
 
 the testimony of men like David Rice, who knew 
 but too well how dark were the tnnihled waters of 
 the stormy sea upon which our Synod was launched 
 on the 14th of October, 1802. But in that tem- 
 pestuous sea there were undercurrents, deep and 
 strong, in the native character and disposition of 
 the people: courage, endurance, sagacity, and deep 
 religious convictions. And the subsequent history 
 of our State and our Synod gave abundant evi- 
 dence that in 1S02 these undercurrents were sleep- 
 ing, not dead. 
 
 As the Synod of \'irginia, with an eye single to 
 the greatness of the "Western Country," enlarged 
 its boundaries from thne to time to include moun- 
 tains, plains, rivers and forests, so the Synod of 
 \'irginia extended its jurisdiction over the ever- 
 widening limits of the State. Into that Western 
 country the minister followed hard after the hunter 
 and the pioneer; and as the towns and cities were 
 built, from the tall chimney of the factory it was 
 but a little distance to the tapering spire of the 
 church. 
 
 In 17SG there were four Presbyteries within the 
 bounds of the Synod of Virginia: 
 
 Redstone, embracing the settlements in Western 
 Pennsylvania; Hanover, which covered Eastern 
 Virginia, i. c, the country lying east of the Blue 
 Ridge; Lexington, which extended up the V'alley of 
 Virginia, and into what is now West Virginia; Tran- 
 sylvania, which included the region called Ken- 
 tucky, the settlements on the Cumljerland River 
 and its tributaries, and, by a subsequent Act of that
 
 SjTiod, the settlements on the Miami and Scioto, 
 north of the Ohio River. 
 
 At no point within fifty miles could any one 
 have located the bounds of the Transylvania Pres- 
 bytery. Those who suppose that this Presbytery 
 or its successor, the Synod of Kentucky, had any 
 fixed or natural boundaries, are greatly mistaken, 
 for in after years the limits of the Synod were 
 extended north, south and west, far out into the 
 great unknown. 
 
 This Presbytery (Transylvania) was organized 
 on the 17th of October, 1786, at Danville, and by a 
 subsequent Act of the Synod of Virginia it was 
 divided into three : • 
 
 West Lexington, (so called to distinguish it from 
 the old Lexington Presbytery in \'irginia) embraced 
 Central Kentucky; A\'ashington, located on both 
 sides of the Ohio, in North and Northeast ; Tran- 
 sylvania, a vast territory in Western Kentucky and 
 Middle Tennessee. 
 
 Now let us look at the expansion of our Synod. 
 First a Presbytery was formed called "Miami," 
 located on the north bank of the Ohio, "embrac- 
 ing all the territory lying west of a line drawn 
 north from the mouth of the Licking River." 
 
 On the 22d of May, 1S17, our General Assembly 
 ordered that so much of the Synod of Ohio, within 
 the State of Indiana, as lies west of a line drawn 
 north from the Kentucky River, be attached to the 
 Synod of Kentucky. In October, 1817, our Synod 
 formed a new Presbytery called "Louisville," bound- 
 ed as follows: On the north by a line drawn from 
 McCoun's Fcrrv on the Kentucky River, thence
 
 with a line leading to Bardstown to where it crosses 
 the Salt River, thence along that river to the Ohio, 
 thence with the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, 
 thence north indcjinitely. 
 
 In 181(j our Synod ordered that the jurisdic- 
 tion of the West Tennessee Presbytery be consid- 
 ered as extending across the Ohio and Mississippi 
 Rivers — indefinitely, containing a ])arl of tlic Mis- 
 souri Territory. 
 
 By another Act of the Synod certain vacant 
 churches in the Illinois Territory were attached 
 to the Presbytery of Muhlenburg. 
 
 And finally a new territory was formed by the 
 Synod, having for its eastern boundary the Pedito 
 River, thence in a direct line to Fort Jackson at the 
 junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, thence 
 along lines which extended that new territory across 
 what is now the State of Alabama clear down into 
 Florida. 
 
 So you see that our Synod when it undertook to 
 extend its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, did nothing 
 by halves or in a small way. Whatever might lie 
 beyond its sight or its ken, it took anyhow, wherever 
 it was, whatever it might be. Clearly it wanted 
 the earth and meant to have it. The wide extent 
 of the bounds of the Synod of Virginia, the dangers 
 and hardships experienced by delegates from re- 
 mote churches and settlements, led that body to 
 petition the. General Assembly for a division. Ac- 
 cordingly the General Assembly in session at Phila- 
 delphia, on April '2S, 1802, Resolved — 
 
 That the Presbyteries of Hanover, Lexington 
 and Wincliestcr constitute a Synod, to be known
 
 as the Synod of Virginia. That the Presbyteries 
 of Redstone, Ohio and Erie be constituted a Synod, 
 to be known as the Synod of Pittsburg. 
 
 That the Presbyteries of Transylvania, West 
 Lexington and Washington, constitute a Synod to 
 be known as the Synod of Kentucky. 
 
 Under this order our Synod was organized at 
 Lexington on the 14th of October, 1802. Rev. 
 David Rice as Moderator and Robert Marshall as 
 Clerk. 
 
 Thirty members were enrolled — seventeen min- 
 isters and thirteen elders — whole number of min- 
 isters thirty-seven. Out of the nineteen ministers 
 attached to Transylvania Presbytery, fourteen were 
 absent — the first cloud above the horizon in the 
 great Cumberland controversy. 
 
 To other speakers on this occasion you have 
 assigned certain branches of my subject : 
 
 To one, the Origin and History of the Cumber- 
 land Church; 
 
 To another. Evangelism and the great revivals 
 which have been vouchsafed to us ; 
 
 To yet another, Education, the beginning and 
 growth of our Colleges and Seminaries 
 
 The great revival of 1800 can be considered by 
 me only so far as it touched — with a tongue of hre — 
 the subsequent history of our Synod. 
 
 Our historian has said: "Unlike the still, small 
 voice, on the softly flowing waters of Siloa, the 
 great revival of 1800 rather resembled the whirl- 
 wind, the earthquake, the imjietuous torrent, whose 
 track was marked bv violence and desolation."
 
 19 
 
 To these words I would add that [\\v elTecls of 
 that violence and desohition liave lasted down to our 
 own time. 
 
 In 1S()2 the impetuous torrents, started by the 
 whirlwind and the earthquake, had begun to flow 
 in all their strength. 
 
 In Central Kentucky, particularly, crowds of 
 men and women, half crazed by religious excite- 
 ment, were running into the vagaries of the "New 
 Light" schism, or were rushing into the extrava- 
 gances of Shaker mysticism. While down in the 
 "Green River Country" a far more formidable 
 movement was slowly maturing, which resulted in 
 the formation of what we now call the Cmnberland 
 Church. 
 
 As I must abjure altogether the Cumberland 
 controversy, I now invite your attention to that 
 New Light schism, which so grievously disturbed 
 and crippled our Synod in the morning of its exist- 
 ence. 
 
 It is a curious thing, that, when men are pushed 
 hard in religious controversy, when they can find 
 no authority for their peculiar views in Scripture, 
 in the Creed, or in the polity of the Church, that 
 then they begin to have dreams and visions. "New 
 Light" breaks in upon them. That "New Light" 
 never fails to come just at the time when they need 
 it most ; and it never fails to teach and reveal ex- 
 actly those things for which they have been con- 
 tending. And to the men of that New Light Party, 
 dreams and visions came in sufficient frequency 
 and abundance to constrain them to do all of those
 
 things which they had already determined should 
 be done. 
 
 Whenever we hear a man talking about the 
 demands of modern life and scholarship, which 
 are sure to compel us to abandon all creeds and 
 confessions, and to come down to the bed rock of 
 Christianity, w-e may be very certain that the 
 bed rock will be composed of just such materials 
 as the exigencies of their theories or the trend of 
 their opinions may require. 
 
 Let me know what such men want to believe, 
 and I will undertake to fiix that bed rock to suit 
 them inside of ten minutes. 
 
 The accounts which have come down to us of 
 the disorders and vagaries which have accompanied 
 and followed the great revival of 1800 are such 
 that, if not well attested, we would pronounce them 
 incredible. 
 
 One witness thus described a camp meeting held 
 at Cane Ridge, in Bourbon County. "The noise 
 was like that of Niagara. The tide of emotion 
 seemed to move over them like tumultuous waves. 
 Sometimes hundreds were swept down almost at 
 once, ' like trees of the forest under the blast of the 
 wild tornado.' Seven ministers, some in wagons, 
 others standing on stumps, might have been counted 
 at once, all addressing the multitude at the same 
 time. Of the people some were singing, others 
 praying, others crying aloud for mercy ; while 
 hardened men, who with horrid imprecations 
 rushed furiously into the praying circles, were 
 smitten down as if by an invisible hand, and lay 
 powerless or racked by fearful spasms, till their
 
 companions beholding them were palsied by terror. 
 At times the scene was surpassingly terrible, the 
 boldest hearts were unmanned." 
 
 "At one time," said a spectator, "I saw at least 
 five hundred swept down in a moment, as if a 
 thousand guns had opened upon them ; and then 
 immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent 
 the very heavens. 
 
 "As darkness settled down over the scene, new 
 features of terror presented themselves to the 
 beholder. The camp fires gleamed with a strange 
 light. Hundreds of candles and lamps suspended 
 from the over-arching trees, with torches in every 
 direction lighting up with strange brilliancy the 
 motley groups beneath and the tremulous foliage 
 above, gave to the whole panorama the aspect of 
 wild enchantment ; while chanted hymns, impas- 
 sioned exhortations and earnest prayers, interrupted 
 Vjy sobs and shrieks and shouts and startling cries 
 for mercy, deepened the impression made upon the 
 beholder. The feeling became intense, the excite- 
 ment indescribable and beyond control." 
 
 Another witness described the people, " praying, 
 shouting, jerking, barking, dreaming, prophesying, 
 and looking as through a glass at the infinite glories 
 of y.ion just about to break up the world." 
 
 Such disorders in conduct are always accom- 
 panied by wild extravagancies in faith and 
 doctrine ; the most fundamental truths of religion 
 are questioned, denied and at last repudiated. 
 Every one becomes a law unto himself — guided 
 by dreams and visions.
 
 22 
 
 As the popular feeling in favor of such scenes 
 amounted to a passion, it required courage and 
 wisdom of the highest order to stem that torrent 
 of "mad enthusiasm which swept over the entire 
 territory of the Synod, threatening a subversion of 
 truth and order." 
 
 But there were men in the Synod equal to the 
 occasion and gifted with those qualities which the 
 crisis demanded. At its second meeting in 1803, the 
 Synod boldly grappled with the danger and called 
 to its bar the leaders in what men chose to call the 
 "revival movement." It took up a petition signed 
 by eighty church members, which in the Presbytery 
 of Washington had been cast under the table with 
 every mark of contempt. A petition which seri- 
 ously inculpated the erroneous teaching of certain 
 men. And after a full and careful consideration 
 the Synod proceeded to suspend from the Gospel 
 ministry not less than five out of its little band 
 of thirty-seven ministers. Barton W. Stone, Robt. 
 Marshall, Richard McNemar, Jno. Thompson, and 
 Jno. Dunlary. And in October, 1805, another, 
 Matthew Houston, was tried and deposed from 
 his oflfice as a minister. 
 
 To deal with the people, among whom Stone 
 and his companions labored with sleepless activity, 
 and among whom this pernicious teaching spread 
 like wildfire, was no easy matter. But "Father" 
 Rice and a small band of men who stood behind him 
 never faltered; going about among the people, 
 appealing to their strong sen.se and better reason, 
 explaining and ex])ounding the tenets of a sound 
 doctrine and . a j)urc religion, and circulating
 
 copies of Atkins' edition of The Westminister Con- 
 fession of Faith. 
 
 But at last it was the revival leaders themselves 
 who gave the conservative men a chance to put in 
 staggering and fatal blows. 
 
 The five suspended ministers associated them- 
 selves into The Presbytery of Springfield and put 
 forth an "Apology." A few months afterwards. 
 when that august body gave up the ghost, "The 
 Last Will and Testament" thereof was given to 
 to the public, and added to it " Tlie Witnesses' 
 Address." In these three documents, in cold, hard 
 print, the most damaging facts were unmistakably 
 revealed: That these men and their deluded and 
 almost insane followers were drifting away from 
 the old land marks, deviating from the right more 
 and more, "launching out upon an uncertain sea 
 of experiment, and falling at last into the wildest 
 speculation, repudiating some of the most vital 
 doctrines of our confession, and maintaining that 
 all creeds should be abolished. 
 
 The Synod published a "circular letter" from 
 the pen of the Rev. John Lyle, and subsequently 
 "An Address to the Churches"; wherein the vag- 
 aries and tendencies of the New Light Movement 
 were exposed with convincing logic and merciless 
 severity. 
 
 Of these men Barton W. Stone alone stood to 
 his guns, and fought the battle to a finish. Richard 
 McNemar and John Dunlary, to his unspeakable 
 wrath and indignation, deserted him for the Society 
 of the Shakers; and in ISll, to his deep mortifica- 
 tion, Robert Marshall and John Thompson, frankly
 
 confessing and unequivocally recanting their errors, 
 were received back into the Synod. 
 
 Stone published a number of "Letters on the 
 Atonement," which raised up against him a re- 
 doubtable antagonist in Rev. John P. Campbell, 
 who in a series of letters stripped off all the dis- 
 guises which Stone had assumed, and "showed him 
 up" as nothing better than a rank Unitarian; and 
 compelled him to publicly retract and "eat up" 
 some of the dreadful words which he had used. 
 
 This Stoneite Party began to crumble, and 
 would have passed away had not an abler man 
 appeared on the scene. 
 
 Alexander Campbell was a remarkable man. 
 His great debate with Nathan L. Rice, which began 
 at Lexington on the 15th of November, 1843, in 
 the presence of a great concourse of people, and 
 lasted three weeks, is one of the most notable events 
 in the religious history of our State. Into the 
 organization made by him the New Light Party 
 was absorbed, and thus its historical influence and 
 importance has been perpetuated. 
 
 But still another season of trial was to come 
 upon the Synod. Like a piece of sound timber 
 cut out of an oak, it must be tried and seasoned 
 before it could be fitted and jointed into the place 
 appointed for it. The last war with Great Britain, 
 called by us the War of 1812, brought into being a 
 long list of evils, intensified other evils already in 
 existence, and for a time paralyzed the spiritual life 
 of our people. Whatever the British commander 
 in the West, General Procter, may have lacked in 
 ability he made up in cruelty; and whatever he
 
 lacked in cither was mure tlian made up by Uie coii- 
 simimate skill and unhonnded ferocity of Tecimiseh, 
 by far the greatest Indian chief which it has ever 
 been the misfortune of our Kentucky men to 
 encounter. By him a vast conspiracy was formed ; 
 scattered tribes drawn together into one confed- 
 eracy, and the flames of a most destructive contest 
 lighted up the whole of what was then our Western 
 sky. The massacre on the River Raisin, a desi)erate 
 struggle at Fort Meigs, where out of 800 men, under 
 Colonel Dudley, only 1.50 esca])ed, were tlie fell 
 disasters of a conflict which terminated in a battle 
 on the Thames, in Canada, where Tecumseh and 
 his horde of savages received at the hands of a 
 Kentucky regiment, led by Richard M. Johnson, 
 what some one (concerning another more terrible 
 event) called "a crowning mercy." 
 
 The demoralizing influence of war is always felt 
 in many ways, in many directions, but the magni- 
 tude of the consecjuences of this one, coming upon a 
 new people, in a new country, can hardly be esti- 
 mated. Like a drenching rain which covers the 
 earth and reaches far down into the soil, the evil 
 results permeated our social, political, and religious 
 life. There was already enough venom and hatred 
 between the old Federal and Democratic Parties, 
 but the issues made by the War of 1812 drew the 
 lines so sharp th^t men would not tolerate even in 
 the pulpit a minister whose political oi)inions 
 difTered from tlicir own, and so political animosity 
 intlamed the lues of religious strife, and, to crown it 
 all, just at this time the church was tormented by 
 a virulent outbreak of imbelicf and skepticism In
 
 26 
 
 that remarkable book, "The Cause and Cure of 
 Infidelity," by David Nelson, we are told that 
 "pocket volumes of false statements, infidel man- 
 uals, and painted perversions of history, are spread- 
 ing profusely, while opposite publications are grow- 
 ing more rare." Now, in an age when books were 
 few and costly, who can measure the disastrous 
 results produced by these pocket editions scattered 
 far and wide. No wonder that Nelson denounced 
 in such vigorous language, not only the vices, but 
 the ignorance of his time, and that he proclaimed 
 as one of the cures of infidelity a dissemination of 
 accurate information and religious knowledge. 
 
 The great division of our Church into the Old and 
 New School Parties, which took place in 1837, need 
 not detain us, because with but few exceptions 
 Kentucky Presbyterians adhered to the Old School 
 Party. 
 
 Your committee, by an act of singular good 
 nature, have turned over to me three burning 
 questions: the institution of slavery; the Civil War; 
 and the division of our old Synod in 1866 — and 
 around them all the air is charged with electricity, 
 and dynamite is lying about in chunks as big as a 
 bushel; but fortunately, that dynamite has, in these 
 latter years, lost a large part of its explosive power. 
 
 The institution of slavery perished in the deluge 
 of our Ci\il War; there were great evils and serious 
 responsibilities connected with it, as we all admit, 
 and now not one of us would bring it back from 
 the dead even if he could. Moreover, the attitude 
 of our Synod towards that institution has always 
 been characterized bv moderation and conservatism.
 
 27 
 
 Gradual emancipation, couj)le(l |)(.'rliai)S with com- 
 pensation, would have been received with favor 
 as the best solution of that most dangerous and 
 complicated i)n)l)lcni. 
 
 Hut what sliall I say concerning that unliapi)y 
 division of the < Id Svnod wliicli took jjlace in 1S66. 
 Kvery nian who passed through the trying scenes 
 of some momentous historic event, must look back 
 upon it from the standpoint of his own predilec- 
 tions and opinions. Views very dilTercnt could be 
 obtained of that charming Luray or Page Valley in 
 Virginia; as the spectator might take his stand on 
 the Massanuttin Range on the one side, or the 
 top of the Blue Ridge on the other. Our Synod 
 was divided then and it remains divided still. And 
 we can not hide the fact that even now, after the 
 lapse of thirty-six years, we continue to view the 
 landscape from situations wide aj^art. 
 
 So it seems hardly fit and becoming, or in keep- 
 ing with the spirit of this occasion, to undertake 
 any narration thereof. But who will question the 
 assertion that it was a terrible misfortune coming 
 at the time, and the way it did. For the contro- 
 versy which immediately produced that division 
 came at a time when the minds of men were flam- 
 ing hot with the antagonisms produced by civil 
 war. Inter arnia silent leges; and even after the 
 contest is over, it takes a long time for overheated 
 blood to cool down, and for men to pass beyond the 
 scorching fires of civil strife. 
 
 The plowshare ran through our Synod, our con- 
 gregations, our families; life-long friends were parted
 
 asunder, some to become reconciled in after years, 
 some never could be. 
 
 Will you pardon a personal reminiscence? In 
 my early days I formed a friendship with two of 
 the young members of a certain family; a friend- 
 ship which cast a soft light all through those years 
 of alienation and division; and to-day the memory 
 thereof brings to me a most pleasing reflection, that, 
 Stuart Robinson and Edward P. Humphrey were 
 reconciled ere they passed over the river of death, 
 to meet each other again on the banks of that river 
 of life which flows by the Throne of God. 
 
 Two Presbyterian Churches in the same State, 
 among the same people, alike in doctrine and 
 polity, alike in customs and traditions, must always 
 be, in Some measure at least, a hindrance to each 
 other. But we can look back into the thirty-six 
 years of our divided life, and we can sincerely re- 
 joice that in the latter years the bitterness en 
 gendered by that division has been quietly and 
 surely passing away. And as we unite in this cele- 
 bration of the 100th anniversary of our old mother 
 Synod, shall we not unite (as far as two separate 
 churches can) in a united effort to build up our 
 numbers and our influence in the commonwealth 
 wherein we dwell? For one, I find a double cause 
 for rejoicing in the consolidation, now so happily 
 consummated, of our Colleges and Seminaries; and 
 in the fact that thus far at least we realize the wis- 
 dom of that motto on Kentucky's coat of arms, 
 " United we Stand, Divided we Fall." 
 
 Would that I had the time to si)cak of that long 
 list of heroes who stood in tlie forefront of our
 
 29 
 
 Synod's life. Ministers like David and Nathan L. 
 Rice, David and Samuel K. Nelson, Robert J. and 
 William L. Breckenridge, Jno. C. Young and Lewis 
 Warner Green, Stuart Robinson, Rutherford 
 Douglas and Edward P Humphrey. These men, 
 widely as they differed from each other, were grand- 
 ly endowed with some of the noblest qualities which 
 our Father has ever conferred upon His children. 
 They were mighty in the Scriptures, great in con- 
 troversy, in eloquence divine. At home in meta- 
 physical and polemic theology, si)arkling in wit and 
 genius. In that long list are to be found, men of 
 clear thought and sound scholarship, debaters and 
 parliamentarians of uncommon iK)wer, the loving 
 pastor, the instructive teaclier, the genial com- 
 panion, tlie faithful friend. Oh, the work they 
 did, the suffering they endured, the priceless legacy 
 of renown which they transmitted tmto us. Upon 
 an occasion similar to this it was said by one of 
 those men: "The glory of the children are their 
 fathers. Our glory is that our fathers of the first 
 generation lighted up the dark woods of Kentucky 
 w'ith the lamp of life ; and the fathers of the second 
 and third generations have handed down to us the 
 light brightly burning. They call upon us to pass 
 it on all ablaze to our children until the whole 
 land is filled with light and warmlli." 
 
 And then the long and splendid list of Ruling 
 Elders. Men like Ormond Beatty, James Barbour 
 and David R. Murray, Glass Marshall, Mark Har- 
 din and Samuel Cassedy. Men who stood in their 
 day and generation like strong towers which could 
 not be shaken; some lived in public life and did a
 
 30 
 
 deal for their fellowmen ; and some along the peace- 
 ful "vale of life kept the noiseless tenor of their 
 way," and the memory of what they did, and what 
 they were, is slipping gently and quietly away out 
 of the recollection of men. 
 
 When we read of the lives of men such as these, 
 "we pray for a lingering sunset, even though we 
 are sure that the following sunrise shall be yet more 
 glorious." Nor must I forget to mention the faith- 
 ful service of S. S. McRoberts, for forty-three years 
 the stated clerk of the Synod. 
 
 But at last, said a gifted editor, writing upon 
 the death of Charles Dickens : 
 
 "It is impossible to write as the heart would 
 write. The shadows grow thick and importunate, 
 bringing back old joys and hopes and griefs and 
 disappointments and longings . . . We lay the 
 pen aside — it can do justice neither to the genius of 
 the dead nor the sorrow of the living. It can make 
 but a poor dumb show of words, that do not half 
 the tribute which is paid by the unconscious rose, 
 the reedy thistle, the silent sunshine, and the idle 
 stream." 
 
 At one point or another throughout our vState 
 these men are sleeping 
 
 " Under the sod and the dew 
 Waiting the Judgment Day. 
 
 "So, when the summer calleth, 
 On forest and field of grain 
 With an equal murmur falleth 
 The coaling drip of the rain.
 
 "So, with an ecjuul splcndur 
 The morning sun-rays fall, 
 With a touch, impartially tender 
 On the blossoms blooming for all." 
 
 This sketch has accoiiii)lishe(l Init lilllc if it 
 has not revealed the story of a Synod, which, like 
 an oak planted in the soil of adversity, has been 
 tested and strengthened in the storm and the tem- 
 pest; an oak whose roots extend down deep, whose 
 branches spread far and wide, and in which the sap 
 runs strong and good. It has grown among a peo- 
 ple whose natural qualities, if for a time were ob- 
 scured, had in them the ring of metal sound and true. 
 A commonwealth l)uilt up as if by magic, in a 
 region which had been so long that the memory 
 of man ran not to the contrary, the battle-ground 
 and the hunting-field of savage tribes who lived to 
 the north and the south of it, of these tribes not one 
 ever had a dwelling therein, or any right or title 
 thereto. This region lay a long distance from the 
 haunts of civilized men — an oasis of sin^,'ular 
 beauty and fertility far out in the West, isolated 
 by a broad tract of mountain country from the 
 settlements in the East. It was peopled not slow- 
 ly and gradually, but all at once, in a few years, 
 by a grand rush of emigration over the Wilderness 
 Road. That commonwealth thus planted in the 
 heart of a great wilderness, was destined to become 
 a center, from which should flow streams of po- 
 litical and religious life; a type of civil freedom 
 and government, which, if strenuous and comba- 
 tive, was adapted to that people and the work set 
 
 449097
 
 32 
 
 before them; a type of religious faith and prac- 
 tice ; the iron of Calvinism in its blood, and in every 
 fibre the elixir of a religion pure and undefiled 
 before God. 
 
 It is a fact but dimly realized that the great 
 Synods around and about us, have sprung directly 
 or indirectly from these two Synods, which in 
 origin, in faith and in renown are one, only one. 
 
 On the 24th of May, 1814, by order of our Gen- 
 eral Assembly, the Presbytery of Lancaster was 
 detached from the Synod of Pittsburg; the Pres- 
 byteries of Washington and Miami from that of 
 Kentucky; and were formed into the Synod of Ohio, 
 which held its first meeting at Chillicothe in Octo- 
 ber, 1814. 
 
 On the 21st of May, 1817, the Presbyteries of 
 West Tennessee, Union, Shiloh and Mississippi, 
 were detached from the Synod of Kentucky, and 
 formed into a new Synod called Tennessee, which 
 held its first meeting at Nashville in October, 1817. 
 
 That Presbytery called Mississippi, which was 
 created by our Synod, expanded until in 1829 it 
 became the Synod of that name. 
 
 In 1823 our Synod formed a new Presbytery 
 called Salem, on the north bank of the Ohio oppo- 
 site the present city of Louisville; which grew so 
 fast that in October, 1826, the Synod of Indiana 
 held its first meeting at Yincennes. 
 
 And finally a Presbytery called Missouri, ex- 
 tending across Southern Illinois beyond the Missis- 
 sippi River, formed the nucleus around whicli 
 gathered in after years tlie Syn(jds of Illinois and 
 Missouri.
 
 33 
 
 So look tothe North and the vSoutli, and sec how 
 great and stalwart are your children. 
 
 In IS09 the Synod of Kentucky contained forty- 
 one ministers and 1,343 members. 
 
 In 1902 our two Synods taken together contain 
 177 ministers, 273 churches and 28,320 members, 
 whereof two-thirds are in the Southern Synod. 
 
 And we form a part of two jiowerful General 
 Assemblies, which taken together contain l(),7Go 
 churches, 9,118 ministers, 38,068 ruling elders, 
 1,275,000 members, and our contributions for the 
 last year reached the royal sum of $19,307,740. 
 
 And looking onward into the future let us con- 
 clude with those wonderful words of John Ruskin : 
 
 "God doth set His bow in the cloud, and thus 
 renews, in the sound of every falling drop of rain. 
 His promise of everlasting love .... And these 
 passings to and fro of fruitful showers and grateful 
 shade, . . . and voices of moaning winds and 
 threatening thunders, . . . are but to deepen in 
 our hearts the acceptance and distinctness and 
 dearness of the words ' Our Father which art in 
 Heaven.'"
 
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