REFORMED CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES 259 had received their education at European uni- versities ceased, and as the church had as yet no theological school of its own, the standard of ministerial education was considerably low- ered. Here, as in the Reformed church of Germany, there was a general indifference to the original faith of the church, as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism. A reaction against this indifference began about 1815, and in 1820 the synod enjoined on all ministers to use no other book but the Heidelberg catechism in the instruction of youth preparatory to confirma- tion. The first theological seminary of the church was opened at Carlisle, Pa., in 1825. It was removed to York in 1829, to Mercersburg in 1835, and to Lancaster in 1871. In 1830 a high school was opened at York, which in 1835 was also removed to Mercersburg, and in 1836 received the name of Marshall college. In 1853 it was united with Franklin college at Lancaster. The first religious paper in English was estab- lished in 1828, the first German in 1836. Church boards for missions and beneficiary education were also organized. The German language, in which, with only two or three exceptions, all the pastors had conducted public worship till 1825, began in some districts to give way to the English, a transition which caused no little dissension and confusion, but was finally ac- complished. The spread of the English lan- guage and the establishment of theological and classical schools led to a closer connection with other Protestant churches of the United States ; and many ministers and congregations, chiefly those using the English language, showed a tendency to abandon some peculiar customs of the church, as catechization, confirmation, and the observance of great festivals, and to assim- ilate their church to the other Protestant de- nominations. But a powerful counter move- ment set in, which received its first impulses from the philosophical teachings of Dr. Rauch, first president of Marshall college, and found its ablest and most influential expounder in Dr. John Nevin. The controversy was long and animated. The organism of the church under- went considerable changes. In 1819 the con- stitution had been revised and amended. The territory was divided into classes (correspond- ing to the presbyteries of other churches), and the synod, instead of being a convention of all the ministers and one lay delegate from each parish, hecame a delegated body of ministers and elders elected - by the classes. In 1824 the classes of Ohio became an independent body, assuming the name of the "Synod of Ohio," which in 1837 was changed into "Synod of Ohio and Adjacent States." The new synod, which in 1842 divided its territory into six classes, sympathized with the opponents of Dr. Nevin, who was sustained by the eastern synod. Both synods, however, felt the need of creating a higher body that should have jurisdiction over the whole church, and con- sequently agreed upon the organization of a triennial general synod, which met for the first time in Pittsburgh, in November, 1863. In the same year the church celebrated the 300th anniversary of the publication and adoption of the Heidelberg catechism. The second general synod, held in Dayton, O., in 1866, author- ized the organization of two more synods, the northwestern and the Pittsburgh. The general synod of 1869 resolved to drop the word Ger- man from the name of the church. The gen- eral synod of 1872 appointed a committee to confer with the Reformed church in America, formerly called the Protestant Reformed Dutch church, with a view to forming a union. The joint committee of the two churches, at a meeting held in November, 1874, agreed upon a report declaring that the rite of confirmation and the observance of festal religious days in the Reformed church in the United States were no serious obstacles to a union ; but that, on the other hand, the fact that the Reformed church in America does, and the Reformed church in the United States does not, regard the Belgic confession and the canons of the synod of Dort as standards of faith, was a discrepancy seeming to preclude any further present negotiation in the direction of organic union. The growth of the church in the west- ern states appears to have given to what has been called the " Low Church " party the as- cendancy in the church; for at the general synod of 1872 the appeal of a prominent leader of that party, Dr. Bomberger, president of Ursinus college, against a resolution of the eastern (high church) synod censuring him for assuming the office of teacher of theology and giving theological instruction independently of any proper ecclesiastical supervision and direc- tion, was sustained by a vote of 100 to 78. The Heidelberg catechism is the only standard of doctrine. As this hook was intended to harmonize the Melanchthonian and Calvinistic tendencies, it has been construed hy theolo- gians of these two schools in different ways. In the German Reformed church the Melanch- thonian element has heen predominant, and in the American hranch of the church this ele- ment was more fully developed, so that many representative theologians incurred the charge of Romanizing tendencies. This was especial- ly the case with the doctrine of the church, which is thus explained by a leading theolo- gian of this (the " High Church ") school, Pres- ident E. V. Gerhart : " The German Reformed church denies that the church is an associa- tion of converted individuals; that the Bible is the foundation of the church ; that this re- lation of the contents of the Bible to the in- dividual is immediate ; that Protestantism has its ground immediately in the Sacred Scrip- tures. On the contrary, the church affirms that the person of Christ is the true principle of sound theology ; that the Christian church is an organic continuation in time and space of the life powers of the new creation in Christ Jesus; that private judgment is subordinate to the general judgment of the church, as ex-
