" Through the pernicious
influence of that perfidious journal, sustained by the patronage of
ministers of eminent standing in the church, a large proportion--neatly
one-half--of the ministry were prepared, by the next meeting of Synod in
1833, to renounce the peculiar principles and long known usages of the
Reformed Covenanted Church. Organizing themselves as a separate body,
yet claiming their former ecclesiastical name, they deliberately
incorporated with the government of the United States, and some of the
senior ministers, more fully to testify their loyalty, in their old age,
took the oath of naturalization!--thus breaking down the carved work
which they had for many years assiduously labored to erect.
It was hoped that the severe trial to which the professing witnesses of
Christ were subjected at that time, would have taught them a lesson not
soon to be forgotten. It was thought by many that the church was now
purged from the leaven which had almost leavened the whole lump. The
Synod met in 1834, when a perverse spirit was evident in the midst of
its members.
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