issue, found itself in 1861 side by side with the
southern secession from the Old School, and in full agreement with it in
morals and politics. The two bodies were not long in finding that the
doctrinal differences which a quarter-century before had seemed so
insuperable were, after all, no serious hindrance to their coming
together.

Even after the war was over, its healing power was felt, this time at
the North. There was a honeycomb for Samson in the carcass of the
monster. The two great Presbyterian sects at the North had found a
common comfort in their relief from the perpetual festering irritation
of the slavery question; they had softened toward each other in the glow
of a religious patriotism; they had forgotten old antagonisms in common
labors; and new issues had obscured the tenuous doctrinal disputes that
had agitated the continent in 1837. Both parties grew tired and ashamed
of the long and sometimes ill-natured quarrel. With such a disposition
on both sides, terms of agreement could not fail in time to be found.
For substance, the basis of reunion was this: that the New-School church
should yield the point of organization, and the Old-School church should
yield the point of doctrine; the New-School men should sustain the
Old-School boards, and the Old-School men should tolerate the New-School
heresies. The consolidation of the two sects into one powerful
organization was consummated at Pittsburg, November 12, 1869, with every
demonstration of joy and devout thanksgiving.

One important denomination, the Congregationalists, had had the
distinguished advantage, through all these turbulent years, of having no
southern membership. Out of all proportion to its numerical strength was
the part which it took in those missions to the neglected populations
of the southern country into which the various denominations, both of
the South and of the North, entered with generous emulation while yet
the war was still waging. Always leaders in advanced education, they not
only, acting through the American Missionary Association, provided for
primary and secondary schools for the negroes, but promoted the
foundation of institutions of higher, and even of the highest, grade at
Hampton, at Atlanta, at Tuskegee, at New Orleans, at Nashville, and at
Washington. Many noble lives have been consecrated to this most
Christlike work of lifting up the depressed. None will grudge a word of
exceptional eulogy to the memory of that spl