Presbyterian Creed Obsolete.
Three recent graduates of Union Theological Seminary were licensed to preach by the New York Presbytery June 22. The young men had been refused such license at the April meeting on the ground of insufficient conviction regarding some of the substantial tenets. A committee examined them separately in May and advised the Presbytery to hear them again. Six hours were spent in the examination by that body. At the roll-call the candidates won out, but only by majorities. One of the candidates did not accept the virgin birth of Christ, tho he accepted His divinity. He did not believe in the resurrection of the body; it was the spiritual body of Christ that rose. The case of Lazarus was to convey a moral lesson and not literal truth; and he was not certain about the incarnation. He did not believe that original sin came in through eating the forbidden fruit, and the story was given to convey simply the commission of sinful and forbidden acts. The roll-call showed a vote of 36 to 59 in favor of sustaining the young man in his skepticism and granting him license to preach. The other two young men held substantially the same views as those given by the first candidate. Each received substantial majorities, and they were informed that licenses would be granted them to preach. One of the young men will start at once to take up missionary work in China. While this action of the Presbytery is inconsistent with the faith once delivered to them, and violates the foundation principles of their organization, yet it is perfectly consistent in this, that if they are to maintain a theological school where such sentiments and beliefs are to be systematically taught and inculcated, they are logically bound to license the product. The theological schools lie at the root of the trouble, and if the schools are established and maintained by the denomination and their methods and principles concurred in, it is too late to deal with the graduates individually when they come forth from it. The trouble lies right here in the fact that thousands of ministers and teachers are rejecting the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; all our schools and colleges are developing a school of skepticism that is undermining the faith once delivered to the saints; and nowhere is this poisonous teaching more subtle and constant than in the theological institutions of the various churches: the stream of learning is being poisoned at the fountain.