eral
secessions from her, they were not upon the ground of doctrine as
expressed in the creed. In 1843, however, a decided departure took
place in this respect, in one of the offshoots of the Church--viz.,
in that of the United Secession Church. The Rev. James Morison had
declared it to be his belief that Christ died for all men. He was
charged with heresy and deposed. Other brethren threw in their lot
with him, and in due course the Evangelical Union was formed. Its
primary doctrines are that the Divine Father loves all men, that
Christ died for all men, and that the Divine Spirit gives sufficient
grace to all men, which, if improved, would lead to their salvation.

Such, then, is a brief outline of the main historical facts in this
controversy, and it is worthy of note, as remarked, that for the
first 400 years of the Christian era the Calvinistic system of
theology was unknown to the Christian church. It began, as we have
seen, with Augustine, and being adopted by Calvin was widely spread
in those countries which received at the Reformation Protestant
principles. It comprehends truths of vast value to man, but which
are not peculiar to it. They are held as firmly by opponents as by
the followers of Calvin; such, for instance, as the inspiration of
the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the inability of man to work
out a glory meriting righteousness, justification by faith alone,
and the necessity of the Spirit's work in regeneration. As in the
Church of Rome, there have also been ranged under the banner of the
Genevan divine men of the most varied accomplishments and the most
saintly character. But men are often better than their professed
creed, and often worse. As a system it has passed its meridian, and
although ministers and elders are still required to profess their
faith in its peculiarities, it has lost its hold on the popular
mind. Mr. Froude, in his celebrated address to the St. Andrew's
students, said, "After being accepted for two centuries in all
Protestant countries as the final account of the relations between
man and his Maker, Calvinism has come to be regarded by liberal
thinkers as a system of belief incredible in itself, dishonouring to
its object, and as intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. To
represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as incurably
wicked--wicked by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by
eternal decree; as doomed (unless exempted by special grace, which
h