to us when it was first made, but was simply part of the negotiation then pending between the Old and New Schools, we were invited in 1870 to consider our grievances healed. Is the proposition different on May 21, 1873? Mark the language: 'That in accordance with a resolution unanimously adopted by each of the two bodies now constituting the reunited Assembly, all action touching, etc., has been since the reunion null and void and therefore of no binding effect and not to be pleaded as a precedent in the future.' It is the old 'concurrent declaration' basis over again, nothing more, nothing less. Has anything occurred to make that satisfactory in 1873 which was rejected as quibbling and evasive in 1870?

"There is a curious history about the paper on which we are now commenting. Some few weeks ago, the draft of an overture to be submitted to the Northern Assembly was prepared, it is said, between Drs. Brooks and Niccolls, the representatives of the contending parties in Missouri, and was extensively circulated amongst our ministers as a preliminary test of its acceptableness. The resemblance of this overture to that which was actually adopted by the Assembly, plainly shows it to have been the basis upon which the latter was framed; and yet upon this particular point, its language has been most materially modified. The original draft, to which Dr. Brooks is understood to have given his assent, requires the Northern Church to declare of its offensive legislation against us that it be, and the same hereby is, declared null and void.' Here, then, a direct legislative enactment is proposed annulling and cancelling the past. But this is studiously. altered into a mere declaration that it has always been null and void since the reunion; and by the mere force of a resolution seeking to bring the Old and New Schools together, and which never had any other than an ex post facto application to ourselves. What does this cautious change in the language of the original overture mean, but that the Assembly does not intend to be understood as repealing any of its former offensive legislation, but only as consenting to its becoming obsolete?

"Any lingering doubt on this point will be removed by the following remarks of Dr. Niccolls, the chief mover of the measure, and the only speaker who is reported as advocating its passage. He says: 'These resolutions bear on the future prosperity of our Church. I would not have anything done to humiliate this Church, and we make no confession or apology, but we simply want our brethren to understand there is no brand resting on them. When we deal with our fellow men, we must deal with them as equals. All our brethren want to know is, that there is nothing standing on the records against them. The two Assemblies, at their union in 1871 (?) [1869] made this declaration, and we to-day take no new action, but simply reaffirm the old.'

"Our objection to this basis of union is to-day exactly what it was three years ago, that it prevaricates. It dead-letters, whilst it refuses

to disown. We confess our utter inability to comprehend the state of mind and heart which such a course reveals. During a period of five years the records of the Northern Assembly teem with the most atrocious slanders against us, in the form of solemn testimonies delivered in the fear of God against enormous wickedness. Now if those allegations were true when uttered, they are true still; for we declare that we have not changed our opinions and convictions in the least degree, nor in a single particular. Nay, if guilty under these charges in 1865, when they were heaped the most bitterly upon us, we are more guilty now by reason of persistency in what Northern Christians so intemperately denounced. Here then is the embarrassing dilemma in which the Baltimore Assembly places itself; if these things affirmed of us be true, how can they consent to hold them as obsolete; if they are not true, how can they be held back from openly retracting them? This is the view that is the most painful to us; this want of manliness in standing by their own convictions, or that feebleness of convictions, which makes truth and honor mere matters of diplomacy and convenience. We cannot understand how a thing is, and yet is not, at the same moment; we cannot learn how to say and to unsay, in the same breath. This is our trouble in the matter of fusion with the Northern Church; and the objection holds good against fraternal correspondence as well as against organic union, so long as these terrible charges are not distinctly withdrawn. It is a mere evasion to say they are no longer insisted upon. This Assembly has by the very alteration of the original draft of their own paper plainly declared, that they take nothing back We repeat, with the profoundest sorrow at the necessity which compels it, that it is a prevarication to 'declare confidence in the Christian character of these brethren,' while 'these brethren' are stamped upon their records as heretics, blasphemers, traitors,-published industriously as such throughout the world until the hearts of all Christendom are turned away from us, and a steady refusal is maintained to express even so much as regret for it all. The longer this matter is agitated in its present form, the deeper becomes our distrust of a body which sinks candor, honesty and Christian manliness in the effort to 'palter in a double sense,' and after the maxim of Talleyrand uses words for no other purpose than to conceal thought.

"So far as the basis proposed for fellowship and future union, it is precisely what we have already considered and rejected. We believe the Southern Church stands more firmly upon the action taken in Louisville, in 1870, than she did when that action was first proclaimed. We have other objections to urge against the new 'Olive Branch,' which we must reserve for the present."

In the next two papers he stresses the following points: I. The inconsistency between the high professions of this overture, and the history of the Northern Church in wresting from

us our property and fomenting divisions amongst our people. 2. The unsatisfactory character of the overture as testimony to the spiritual character of the Church. 3. The false principles and false facts contained in the overture. Possessed of a copy

of the paper drafted, on request, by Dr. Brooks of the Old School Synod of Missouri, and presented to the Northern Assembly to be passed as an overture which would meet the approbation of the Southern Church, Dr. Palmer showed what the Northern Assembly would not do as well as what it would do; particularly, that instead of a clear, definite, and manly reaffirmation of the spirituality of the Church, and the headship of King Jesus therein, the Assembly deemed it "sufficient to call attention to the following principles and statements," in the standards. The principles were indeed there, but the Northern Church had been trampling on them since 1861 till year of grace, 1873. Under the head of false principles and false facts, he exposes a number of sophisms, and some popular idols. For example, the Northern Assembly had spoken of "divisions" as a matter to be deplored-which duty and fidelity to the Lord required to be healed-and this, too, as necessary to a practical manifestation of our oneness in Christ. Over against this he poured himself out in a torrent of fiery reasoning. He will not have it that his Church is schismatical simply because she is not ready to dump herself onto the Northern heap. In this connection he says:

"Our mature conviction is that the reckless desire throughout Christendom to blot out all lines of separation, and to roll up all the branches of the Church into one imperial organization, has grown into a heresy which requires to be combated. Unification is not unity, which is often destroyed when the union is accomplished. The unity which is sought to be realized in our day is a different thing from that which the Bible enjoins-which is, 'the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.' This is far different from the unity of imperialism, the unity of external organization. It is not prompted by the ambition to create a national Church, which by its mere bulk shall be a power in the land, able to cope with rival organizations in the influence they exert upon the politics of a country. It is a unity founded upon justice, which the Northern Church denies to us-and upon truth, which the Northern Church steadily obscures. It is a unity of faith-distinctly opposed to the Broad Churchism which quietly ignores doctrinal soundness, and merges into one general negation the most discordant creeds. In a word, comprehension is not unity.

He thinks that there are ample reasons why the Southern Presbyterian Church should maintain her own independent existence. In a subsequent article he argues the competence of the reunited Northern Church to repeal the evil legislation of the Old and New School bodies down to the time of the Union, notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary.

At least fifteen other articles in Volume V of the Southwestern Presbyterian are from his facile, elegant and able pen. The most of them were intended to quicken and stir the spiritual life of the people. Toward the close of this volume we come upon the beginning of a most helpful series, which runs. over into Volume VI. The series begins with an exposition of the words "God setteth the solitary in families." There are eight papers in the series. In them he attempts to analyze the several relations of the family, "to trace throughout the delegated authority by which it is constituted the model of the State;" to show "in the subordination of its various parts how the great principles of law and government are illustrated, and how these are carried over, in the gradual expansion of the family into all the ramifications of the most diffused society."

This series was followed at once by another series, of five papers, in which we have a presentation of the unfolding of the family as the primary germ, into the Church. As shall hereafter appear, out of these two series was to grow a book.

CHAPTER XIV.

REBUILDING THE WALLS-Continued.

(1865-1874.)

OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES AND SERMONS.-A GOOD TURN TO COLUMBIA SEMINARY.-BEGINS THE LABOR OF PREPARING AND BRINGING OUT THE BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES HENLEY THORN well.-LetterS OF FRIENDSHIP AND PASTORAL CONCERN.-LETTERS TO HIS SISTER SOPHRONIA.-LETTER TO COLONEL HUTSON.-TRIBUTE TO MRS. HUTSON. -THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTERS, KATE GORDON AND MARION LOUISA. THE MARRIAGE OF HIS DAUghter, GUSSIE BARNARD.INTEREST IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNIVERSITY FOR THE SOUTHEAST. HIS CALL TO THE CHANCELLORSHIP OF THE UNIVERSITY.HELD IN NEW ORLEANS.

'HE demand for occasional addresses and sermons contin

The demand for throughout this period. No history of

Dr. Palmer's life could be regarded as even approximately adequate that failed at least to refer to some of these dis

courses.

Mr. Alfred Hennen, the patriarch of the New Orleans Bar, at the time, a charter member of, and one of the two oldest ruling elders in, the First Presbyterian Church, a most admirable gentleman, a scholar and a Christian, died January 19, 1870. Soon thereafter Dr. Palmer was asked to deliver in connection with Mr. Hennen's death, an address on "Christianity and Law; or the Claims of Religion on the Legal Profession." After a glowing tribute to Mr. Hennen, he presented a masterful argument for Christianity, founded upon its wonderful affinity with human jurisprudence. The address was received with high favor. The following members of the bar, Messrs. C. Roselius, Wm. W. King, John Finney, Thos. J. Semmes, Robt. Mott, and B. R. Forman, requested its publication "believing it well calculated to elevate the character of the profession."

The death of Gen. Robt. E. Lee was an occasion of universal grief throughout the South. On the evening of October 18, 1870, New Orleans gathered at the St. Charles Theatre. Eulogies were delivered by the Hon. Wm. Burwell, Hon. Thos. J. Semmes and Dr. Palmer. The whole brilliant inside