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The Irish Presbyterian Mind:
Conservative Theology, Evangelical

Experience, and Modern Criticism,
1830-1930 Holmes
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Title Pages
The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative

Theology, Evangelical Experience, and Modern
Criticism, 1830-1930
Andrew R. Holmes
Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780198793618
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198793618.001.0001
Title Pages
Andrew R. Holmes
(p.i) The Irish Presbyterian Mind (p.ii)
(p.iii) The Irish Presbyterian Mind
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Dedication

Andrew R. Holmes

Print ISBN-13: 9780198793618
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198793618.001.0001
(p.v) Dedication
Andrew R. Holmes
To Jillian and Peter (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1
Acknowledgements

Andrew R. Holmes

Print ISBN-13: 9780198793618
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198793618.001.0001
(p.vii) Acknowledgements
Andrew R. Holmes
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the staff and librarians of the

following institutions: the Burns Library, Boston College; the Gamble Library,
Union Theological College, Belfast; the Harriet Irving Library, University of New
Brunswick; the Irish Collection, Ulster University, Magee; the Presbyterian
Historical Society of Ireland; the McClay Library, Queen’s University, Belfast;
and New College Library, the University of Edinburgh. I am especially grateful to
Karla Grafton of the Montgomery Library of Westminster Theological Seminary
for permission to cite items from the J. Gresham Machen Collection.
I am indebted for their help and patience to the staff at Oxford University Press,
particularly Karen Raith, Jane Robson, and Donald Watt, and the two anonymous
readers for the Press who offered invaluable comments on the manuscript.
Postgraduate students past and present have helped clarify issues and
suggested new approaches, and I would like to thank especially Robyn Atcheson,
Chelsea Brownlee, Kyle Blackmer, Tim Donachie, Matthew Houston, Stuart
Irwin, Ryan Mallon, Stuart Mathieson, Thomas Maxwell, and Daniel Ritchie. I
want to record my thanks to colleagues and friends who have helped in a variety
of ways: Robert Armstrong, Godfrey Brown, S. J. Brown, David Bebbington, John
Coffey, James Davis, Frank Ferguson, Diarmid Finnegan, Paul Gilmore, Peter
Gray, Stephen Gregory, David Hayton, Myrtle Hill, Kevin Kenny, Alvin Jackson,
Keith Jeffery, Diarmuid Kennedy, Colin Kidd, John Larkin, Michael Ledger-Lomas,
Eric Morier-Genoud, Mark Noll, and Don Wright. I am particularly pleased to
record my thanks to Sean Connolly, Scott Dixon, and Crawford Gribben, who
read and commented on drafts of the work. David Livingstone also undertook
this task, and I want to especially record my thanks to him for his unwavering
Page 1 of 2
Acknowledgements
encouragement and support. None of these individuals is responsible for any

errors of fact or the interpretation contained in this book.
This book is dedicated to Jillian and Peter, who have lived with this project since
Peter arrived in the world. I love you both.
Andrew R. Holmes
Belfast, June 2018 (p.viii)
Page 2 of 2
Introduction

Andrew R. Holmes

Print ISBN-13: 9780198793618
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198793618.001.0001
Introduction
The Return of Religion and the Irish Presbyterian Mind
Andrew R. Holmes
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198793618.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

The Introduction provides the necessary scholarly and historical context for the
five main chapters. Generally speaking, religiously conservative Irish
Presbyterians have not received the attention that their numbers and social
prominence warrant. This puts Irish history at odds with wider trends. The
analysis offered in this book draws upon the upsurge of scholarly interest in
evangelical Protestantism to recover the theological thought of conservative
Presbyterians. It shows that conservatism did not have to involve a dismissal of
the modern and a retreat into anti-intellectualism and fundamentalism. It
proceeds on the basis that scholars ought to take seriously the self-confessed
religious motivations of believers rather than immediately jumping to explain
them away by reference to other factors considered to be of more significance.
Presbyterian writers had logical reasons for being conservative that owed much
to their Irish experience but to which their conservatism cannot be entirely
reduced.
Keywords: Presbyterian, evangelical, theological, fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism
This book considers how one protestant community responded to the challenges
posed to traditional understandings of Christian faith between 1830 and 1930. It
examines the attitudes of the leaders of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to
biblical criticism, modern historical method, evolutionary science, and liberal
forms of protestant theology. It explores how they reacted to developments in
other Christian traditions, including the so-called ‘Romeward’ trend in the
Page 1 of 45
Introduction
established Churches of England and Ireland and the ‘Romanization’ of

Catholicism. Was their response distinctively Presbyterian and Irish? How was it
shaped by Presbyterian values, intellectual first principles, international
denominational networks, Irish politics, the expansion of higher education, and
relations with other Christian denominations? The story begins in the 1830s,
when evangelicalism came to dominate mainstream Presbyterianism, the largest
protestant denomination in present-day Northern Ireland. This process was
prompted by the transatlantic growth of evangelicalism from the 1780s and was
expressed through the expulsion of a handful of ministers who denied the full
divinity of Christ in 1829, the formation of the present-day General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1840, and the spectacular religious revival
that swept the north of Ireland in 1859. The story ends in the late 1920s with the
exoneration of J. E. Davey, a professor in the Presbyterian College, Belfast, who
was tried for heresy on accusations of being a ‘modernist’. Within this
timeframe, the book describes the formation and maintenance of a religiously
conservative intellectual community, one in which conservatism was defined in
different ways. At the heart of the interpretation is the interplay between the
Reformed theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith and a commitment to
common evangelical principles and religious experience that drew protestants
together from various denominations. The definition of conservative within the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland moved between these two poles and could take
on different forms depending on time, geography, social class, and whether the
individual was a minister or a member of the laity.
(p.2) The first four chapters cover the principal topics that concerned
Presbyterian writers before 1914—confessional theology and religious revival,
church history and government, mental and natural science, and biblical
criticism and interpretation. In essence, Presbyterians in Ireland were involved
in apologetics, defending their theological world view from threats external to
their community. Throughout this period they remained committed to basic
evangelical principles—the necessity of personal conversion, the supreme
authority of the Bible, the sacrificial death of Christ, missionary activism—and
these were increasingly described in confessional and Presbyterian terms. By
the end of the century, the Irish church was well-known for its loyalty to the
Calvinist theology of the Westminster Standards. This conservatism was
accepted by the laity and there is little evidence of significant popular criticism
of the intellectual leaders of the denomination. Generally speaking, their defence
of a conservative world view was not obscurantist and they engaged seriously
with various challenges to offer a coherent justification for their beliefs. In
particular, they spent much of their time stating and explaining a historical
account of their seventeenth-century origins in Ireland. This mattered in terms
of denominational identity, but it became more generally significant after 1870
as the demand for Irish legislative independence threatened the integrity of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The historical scholarship of James
Page 2 of 45
Introduction
Seaton Reid, W. D. Killen, Thomas Witherow, James Heron, and others provided
the rhetoric and resources for unionist opponents of Home Rule. It fed directly
into one of the centrepieces of Ulster Unionist defiance, the signing of the Ulster
Covenant in September 1912, and shaped the formation in 1921 of the new state
of Northern Ireland.
Though the overall character of the Presbyterian mind remained conservative,

an increasing minority sought moderate accommodation with aspects of modern
criticism. This process was both facilitated and complicated by evangelicalism.
The ubiquity of the language of conservative evangelical experience did much to
confuse those who wanted to clearly define theological parties within the
church. This theme comes to the fore in the final chapter, which examines
reconstruction after the Great War and how individuals began to offer a
relatively liberal alternative to the dominance of a particular version of
conservatism within the denomination. Yet their efforts did not push the church
to the theological left. The heresy trial of 1927 was a product of the 1920s and
cannot be seen in isolation from the conservative ethos of Irish Presbyterianism
in general.
Generally speaking, religiously conservative Irish Presbyterians have not

received the attention that their numbers and social prominence warrant. In
Irish historical writing, Presbyterians mainly appear as standard-bearers of
eighteenth-century Enlightened and radical ideology. By contrast, treatment of
their history after 1800 is often brief and simplistic; Presbyterian religion is
subordinated to politics, and the narrative is of a negative retreat into political
unionism and anti-Catholicism. This puts Irish history at odds with wider (p.3)
trends, where over the past thirty years scholars have acknowledged the need to
treat religion as a force in its own right, and to understand conservative as well
as liberal positions. It has been too easy for scholars of Ireland to draw a
straight line from the triumph of evangelicalism with Henry Cooke in the 1830s
to Ian Paisley in the 1950s via the heresy trial of the 1920s. By doing so, they
stereotype an Ulster-protestant religious culture as irredeemably puritanical,
uncultured, anti-Catholic, and narrow-minded. The analysis offered in this book
draws upon the upsurge of scholarly interest in evangelical Protestantism to
recover the theological thought of conservative Presbyterians. It shows that
conservatism did not have to involve a dismissal of the modern and a retreat into
anti-intellectualism and fundamentalism. It proceeds on the basis that scholars
ought to take seriously the self-confessed religious motivations of believers
rather than immediately jumping to explain them away by reference to other
factors considered to be of more significance. Presbyterian writers had logical
reasons for being conservative that owed much to their Irish experience but to
which their conservatism cannot be entirely reduced. This Introduction develops
these themes by examining aspects of the general historiography of protestant
theology during this period, how it relates to existing scholarship on Irish
Page 3 of 45
Introduction
Presbyterianism, and the rationale for emphasizing the Irish dimension of the
Presbyterian mind.
Historiography—The Return of Religion and the Interpretation of Irish

Presbyterianism
The history of religion is one of the most dynamic and popular in contemporary
historical studies; yet this was not the case for much of the twentieth century.
Modern historical method and its concern with original documents, freedom of
interpretation, scholarly detachment, and suspicion of theory, often assumed
secularization and the inevitable triumph of religious tolerance. As a
consequence, in histories of the West after 1789, religion was variously
subsumed into ‘society’ and ‘culture’, explained away in terms of class interests,
sexual repression, modernization, and ritual, or simply ignored. It has become
apparent that secularization was a belief system in its own right and that neutral
historical method may be seen as an ideological product of modernity.1 Against
this backdrop, there has been a return to religion within the humanities more
(p.4) generally, a process accelerated by developments in the last half-century,
including the perceived inadequacy of secular world views to make sense of
changes in the modern world, the ‘epistemological crisis’ created by radical
literary criticism and cultural studies, and the challenge to the objectivity of
positivist science offered by Thomas Kuhn in his The Structures of Scientific
Revolutions (1962).2 Perhaps the most important factor is the resilience,
expansion, and political importance of religion itself. This has taken various
forms, including the rise of political Islam since the 1970s, the continued
significance of the Religious Right in the United States, the phenomenal growth
of Pentecostalism in the so-called two-thirds world, and the resurgence of
organized Christianity in post-Communist societies.3
The continued significance of religion in the twenty-first century has attracted

the attention of scholars; yet there is still a tendency to explain away religious
motives in secular terms. The present study proceeds on the basis that
historians ought to take seriously the religious motives and rhetoric of historical
agents. Inquiry ought to begin with the self-confessed views of the individuals
and groups to be examined, but it does not necessarily have to end at that point.
Writing in the mid-1920s in response to the sociological analysis offered by
Durkheim, Weber, and Troeltsch, John T. McNeill, the well-respected Canadian
scholar of John Calvin, wrote that ‘Protestantism, if it means anything, must
mean something in the field of religion. This is not to deny the intimate relations
of the Protestant’s religion with his business and his politics; it is merely to
maintain a scientific differentiation, and avoid misconceptions.’4 As McNeill
suggests, to begin with religious belief does not mean that scholars inevitably
should finish there—religious ideas must be placed and interpreted within their
proper intellectual, social, political, and religious context. In a thought-
provoking collection of essays, John Coffey, Alister Chapman, and Brad Gregory
have sought to apply to the study of religious ideas the methods of the
Page 4 of 45
Introduction
Cambridge School of political thought associated with Quentin Skinner and J. G.

A. Pocock. They encourage scholars to see things from the perspective of
historical agents rather than anachronistically through the eyes of interpreters
and a certain canon of key texts. They seek to chart a middle course between, on
the one hand, forms of materialism that dismiss religious truth claims in
principle or reduce them in practice to sociological and anthropological
categories, and, on the other, an idealism that examines religious ideas in (p.5)
abstraction. Historians of Christian thought must especially be wary of
confessional interpretations of the past that assume the continuity of doctrinal
traditions or, specifically, the generation of scholars influenced by the theology
of Karl Barth who stressed an ahistorical discontinuity between John Calvin and
later ‘Calvinists’. By contrast, the approach of Coffey, Chapman, and Gregory
‘insists that religious ideas are not more or less intrinsically intelligible than
political or philosophical ideas; that religious ideas are at least as important in
understanding the general course of history and the texture of past societies as
political or philosophical ideas; and that religious ideas (like political,
philosophical, or scientific ideas) need to be understood first and foremost in
their own terms—not in terms of some competing set of religious ideas, nor in
terms of some anachronistic standpoint’.5
It is often claimed that modern biblical criticism, historical method, evolutionary

science, and philosophical utilitarianism led the educated in western
Christendom to first adopt various forms of liberal theology and then to give up
on Christian faith altogether. It is certainly the case that the multiple challenges
of modernity, in both intellectual and social terms, created a crisis of authority
for nineteenth-century protestants. Historical study was itself a principal
challenge to religious truth claims and traditional authorities. Peter Hinchcliff
has observed that ‘Christian faith, and therefore Christian theology, possesses a
historical dimension but the historical facts to which faith is related cannot be
exempted from the web of interconnection without ceasing to be real facts of
history. Nineteenth-century theologians came to realize this in a way in which
their predecessors had not, on the whole, perceived it.’ Particularly challenging
was the application of historical method to the text of the Bible. Pioneered by
German scholars such as Julius Wellhausen, this method became the norm
amongst British theologians, though its adoption was not instantaneous and the
new understanding of history developed in fits and starts.6 Within the
Presbyterian churches, this process was difficult and led to judicial proceedings
against prominent supporters of the new criticism. The Free Church of Scotland
removed William Robertson Smith from his Aberdeen chair in 1881 and in the
United States between 1885 and 1905, Charles Augustus Briggs, A. C. McGiffert,
and Henry Preserved Smith lost their cases or resigned their official
appointments before proceedings could be started. The challenge of history was
part of a broader move towards the professionalization of scholarship. Amateur
experts were replaced by self-proclaimed scholarly elites with defined
Page 5 of 45
Introduction
methodologies and sanctioned means of disseminating their research. They

championed meticulous inquiry (p.6) and subject specialization, reoriented
themselves from a general to an academic audience, and employed German
objectivity, evolutionary science, and ‘an iconoclastic progressive spirit’.7
In response, many protestant theologians sought to adapt orthodoxy to modern

thought. This produced various forms of liberal theology that for many years was
seen as the dominant theological tradition amongst protestants between 1830
and 1914. A standard account of nineteenth-century religious thought published
in 1966 declared that the representative Christian thought of the era was
‘liberal, anti-dogmatic and humanistic’. Liberal Protestantism in Europe traced
its origins back to the protestant Reformers’ appeal to the rights of individual
conscience and challenged literal infallibility by shifting the focus of religious
truth from dogma to history. Modern historical method led scholars to assert the
historical embeddedness of theological statements; the religious experience
remained the same, but the form in which it was expressed and understood
differed and developed over time. Following the great German theologian F. D.
E. Schleiermacher, personal religious faith became central and was defined as ‘a
feeling of absolute dependence; in the case of Christianity a feeling of absolute
dependence upon God in Christ. Primarily it is a matter of individual experience,
a personal intuition. It is not, at all events, to be equated with acceptance of
theological propositions, for these only follow as its consequence and
articulation.’8 Similar developments occurred in the United States, though
theological liberalism or ‘modernism’ was there associated with the pulpit and
the more systematic development of a Social Gospel. The standard account of
American ‘modernist’ theology by W. R. Hutchinson offered a threefold definition
of adaptation, immanence, and progress—‘the conscious, intended adaptation of
religious ideas to modern culture’, that God was ‘immanent in human cultural
development and revealed through it’, and the ‘belief that human society is
moving toward realization … of the Kingdom of God’.9
Though the influence of nineteenth-century liberalism in the following century

received a body blow from Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and others, historical
scholarship on the tradition has not stood still. The focus has moved from
defining a distinctive set of principles to a shared methodology and concern with
religious experience. For instance, Gary Dorrien has offered an overarching
interpretation of the American version that prioritizes a method based on an
appeal ‘to the authority of critical rationality and religious experience’.10 (p.7)
Building on Kant, but more importantly Schleiermacher, ‘Modernist religion was
not so much a set of beliefs as it was a set of feelings or experiences of God.
Christian doctrinal claims, modernists believed, simply articulated these
experiences in theological language.’11 As Kathryn Lofton has pointed out,
‘Again and again within modernist literature, the process of believing is
emphasised over and above the definitive dogma. How you believe, for the
modernists, was your belief.’ This meant that conservative critics were able to
Page 6 of 45
Introduction
caricature modernists as elites out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people
and was a principal reason why they ‘thrived in the university, yet struggled to
find consistent leverage in the pews. Their theology demanded thought, yet
rarely engendered coherent or comforting action within the chaos of their self-
declared new age.’12
Lofton’s comments remind us that theological liberalism remained a

preoccupation of sections of the protestant elite. Most believers remained
conservative and adopted a variety of strategies for dealing with the challenges
of the age. Yet, until recently, religious conservatives have not attracted the
degree of scholarly attention that their numbers and influence warrant. D. M.
Thompson observes, ‘In the history of theology generally heretics have always
attracted more interest from scholars than the orthodox; and this says more
about the retrospective preoccupations of historians than it does about the
nature of the contemporary scholarship.’13 Too much focus on the liberal
tradition and vocal doubt blinds us to the fact that the nineteenth century was a
period of flourishing faith. Theodore Hoppen has commented, ‘Never was Britain
more religious than in the Victorian age. Contemporaries agonized over those
who did not float upon the flood of faith. We marvel at the number that did.’14
Social historians such as Callum Brown have identified the 1960s rather than
the 1890s as the decade in which ‘the death of Christian Britain’ occurred.15 The
idea of ‘a Victorian crisis of faith’ has taken a pounding as scholars have moved
from a narrative that emphasized conflict between faith and scholarship to the
personal and ethical reasons why individuals rejected traditional religion and the
local circumstances that shaped the rejection, adaptation, and adoption of
modern thought.16 Christian faith and the Bible were at the heart of Victorian
(p.8) culture, which explains why doubt expressed in public mattered so much.
As Timothy Larsen has argued, ‘It is time to reintegrate faith positively into
accounts of Victorian thought. Instead of discussions of faith merely serving as
the set-up and foil for the imagined real story—one of the loss of faith—scholars
would do well to learn to see that doubt has a subservient role in nineteenth-
century Britain as the bugbear of a larger story, one of minds profoundly
persuaded by the compelling nature of Christian thought.’17 In terms of science
and religion, the conflict label has been replaced with complexity. David
Livingstone has concluded, ‘I think we will be better advised to seek to uncover
how particular religious communities, in particular space-time settings,
developed particular tactics for coping with particular evolutionary theses.’18
The emphasis on complexity also challenges a two-party paradigm of theological

liberals and conservatives that has routinely been used to explain tensions
within denominations over the proper response to modern criticism. This binary
description ignores the variety of responses and the various mediating positions
that were adopted in practice by most believers.19 James C. Livingstone, in his
excellent general account of Victorian religious thought, recognized the
challenges posed by the professionalization and specialization of scholarship in
Page 7 of 45
Introduction
the late nineteenth century. These produced an ‘extraordinary quickening’ of

intellectual endeavour and replaced clergymen and theologians with
professional experts and specialist periodicals. However, his focus is not on
reactions but on reformulations and how consideration of a broader range of
writers beyond the well-known names underlines the diversity of responses to
the multiple challenges of the era.20
The recognition of the continued salience of religion and the scholarly concern
with complexity has meant that theological conservatives in Britain and North
America have received significant attention in the last thirty years. Of particular
relevance to this study is the sophisticated literature on evangelical
Protestantism.21 This was a movement of renewal and reform within
transatlantic Protestantism that emerged from British Puritanism, German
Pietism, and protestant refugees from Catholic Europe. It was spread
throughout the North Atlantic world in the first half of the eighteenth century by
Moravian missionaries, Methodist preachers, and various revivals of religion
amongst (p.9) Calvinists in America and Scotland.22 The modern study of
religious revival has replaced an older scholarship that reduced the phenomenon
to hysteria caused by the psychological dislocation of societies experiencing the
transition to modernity. Instead historians now acknowledge its transnational
character while also describing how the definition and experience of revival
varied over time and space.23
Much attention has been directed to the pastoral, missionary, and philanthropic
activity of evangelicals, though the life of the mind has not been ignored. Rather
than a byword for obscurantism and an ostrich-like rejection of the modern,
evangelical religion is now seen as a dominant part of Victorian intellectual life
on both sides of the Atlantic and as a mediating theological force itself. David
Bebbington has traced how the gradual coming together of Calvinists and
Arminians produced a theological core based on the authority of the Bible,
redemption through the death of Christ on the cross, personal regeneration and
conversion, and religious activism. As a consequence, ‘Evangelical theology was
the prevailing mode of Christian thinking in the English-speaking world in the
nineteenth century,’ a ‘doctrinal system’ that brought protestants together and
sat loose with creedal details. Evangelicals were less concerned about
theological statement and intellectual endeavour than other Christian traditions,
but they made a distinctive contribution to theological thought. Polarization
between liberals and conservatives was not a feature of evangelicalism until
after the Great War, and up until that time, the ‘common Evangelical faith
remained the popular theology of the English-speaking world’.24 In America’s
God, Mark Noll has depicted an essentially conservative religious culture in the
United States that was a unique combination of evangelical Protestantism,
republican political ideology, and philosophical Common Sense realism. Between
the War of American Independence and the outbreak of the American Civil War,
this synthesis fixed boundaries, provided a morality, and furnished a vocabulary
Page 8 of 45
Introduction
for civil society.25 Specifically in terms of Presbyterianism, the vitality and

variety of conservative Reformed theology have been studied in detail by Noll, J.
H. Moorhead, and others, especially the tradition associated with Princeton
Theological Seminary (1812) and its representative leaders Charles Hodge and
B. B. Warfield.26 In English-speaking Canada, Michael (p.10) Gauvreau has
described a dominant protestant intellectual culture between 1820 and 1930
that brought together pulpit and pew on the basis of the Bible and Scottish
Common Sense philosophy. This synthesis was increasingly challenged, not by
biblical criticism and evolution, but by historicism, philosophical idealism,
consumerism, and the new social sciences. Yet the reaction of Canadian scholars
was different from those in the United States; Canadians put less emphasis on
natural theology and more on the Bible and history, which allowed them to
positively engage with modern scholarship and to remain largely unscathed by
the fundamentalist–modernist controversies of the early twentieth century.27
Conservative protestant theology is often reduced to fundamentalism, and this

popular misunderstanding ignores the distinctions historians have discovered
within the broader evangelical movement of which fundamentalism was a part.
In his classic study, Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980), George
Marsden charted the roots of fundamentalism back to mid-Victorian
developments and its emergence to national prominence in 1920s America.
Fundamentalists were militant evangelicals who were angry about modernizing
trends within church and society and who believed the Bible was error-free on
every topic it discussed, rejected evolution, and had a deeply pessimistic view of
the world. Marsden located the origins of fundamentalism in the Calvinist
theology of Princeton, modern revivalism, a pessimistic form of end-times
thinking known as dispensational premillennialism, and various forms of
holiness teaching. These conservative trends, which often signalled a retreat
from the world, were in response to unparalleled industrial and urban growth
and the emergence of theological modernism. Liberal theology was successfully
opposed at first by theological conservatives, especially those associated with
Princeton Seminary, but was gradually appropriated by a sizeable number within
mainstream American Protestantism and eventually produced the
fundamentalist–modernist conflict of the 1920s within the Presbyterian Church
of the United States of America. For Marsden, fundamentalism was an American
phenomenon because ‘almost nowhere outside of America did this particular
Protestant response to modernity play such a conspicuous and pervasive role in
the culture’, though he suggests that Ulster may be the exception.28 Certainly
the experience was much less fraught in Canada and Britain, and the same was
generally the case in Northern Ireland in the 1920s. Though the ‘unity of
Evangelicalism was broken’ in Britain during that decade, British conservatives
were reluctant to use the term fundamentalist, ‘for it was felt to be alien,
uncouth and pejorative’, and were less concerned about (p.11) evolution than
their American contemporaries. The movement was less belligerent in Britain
Page 9 of 45
Introduction
owing to the strong tradition of personal holiness associated with the Keswick
Convention, an institutional framework of denominations and para-church
organizations that encouraged interaction and cooperation, traditional British
anti-Catholicism, and the restraint of conservative leaders such as Graham
Scroggie, J. Russell Howden, F. B. Meyer, and Campbell Morgan.29
These reinterpretations mean that scholars of British Protestantism are more

prepared to examine the various conservative strategies for dealing with
criticism and are less willing to accept a predetermined narrative that reads the
divisions of the 1920s back into the previous century. Martin Wellings in his
study of evangelicals in the Church of England between 1890 and 1930
concludes that the ‘process of adjusting Evangelicalism to modern thought …
produced a variety of results and a spectrum of opinions. Evangelicals all
rejected what they regarded as the excesses of biblical criticism, evolutionary
science and liberal theology, but there were major disagreements as to what
constituted excess.’30 The same was true for English Nonconformists. Dale
Johnson has argued that the narrative of Nonconformist theology from the 1820s
to the 1920s was not a story of decline from pristine evangelical principles but
rather a serious attempt by conservative theologians to come to terms with
modern challenges. Most Nonconformists adopted a mediating position that was
complicated by the relationships between the clergy, denominational structures,
the laity, and theological colleges. He points out that relatively little time was
spent on the question of biblical authority as the ‘more basic conflict’ concerned
whether the quest for theological truth started with reason or doctrine; in other
words, internal experience or external evidence. By the end of the century,
theological professors were the theological formulators within denominations,
whereas previously these tasks had been performed by the clergy in general.
Piety and education were no longer sufficient and there was a growing gap
between the professional training received by the clergy and the spirituality and
intellectual attainments of church members in general. ‘A new kind of
evangelicalism had clearly emerged—more tentative, more open to variation,
more aware of the challenges to belief and to the cultural impact on religious
thought, but still deeply committed to the historic proclamation of the faith.’31
The same interpretation has been offered on theological developments within

Scottish Presbyterianism. A. C. Cheyne argued that by 1900 a ‘liberal-
Evangelical’ consensus dominated Presbyterian Scotland and ‘was marked by
(p.12) three outstanding characteristics: deference to the methods and
findings of natural science, wariness of all creedal and confessional statements,
and devotion to the use of literary and historical criticism in the study of the
Bible’.32 For supporters, this consensus had not been easily achieved, and
martyrs had been made along the way, most notably William Robertson Smith.
Yet Smith, along with his mentor A. B. Davidson and his illustrious contemporary
George Adam Smith, was a ‘believing critic’ who sought to defend evangelical
Page 10 of 45
Introduction
theology by showing how modern approaches could be reconciled with

traditional religious positions and evangelical spirituality.33
Generally speaking, the developments described so far have made little impact
on historians of modern Ireland. They have routinely cited the social and
political significance of religion but have paid little sustained attention to the
beliefs and practices of Christians, especially theological thought. Religion for
most historians of Ireland is about the politics of identity—protestant supporters
of the Union with Great Britain versus Catholic nationalists and republicans.34
One survey of the historiography of the religious history of nineteenth-century
Ireland was organized around religion as political history, social history, and as
‘a cultural phenomenon’—there was nothing on intellectual and theological
thought.35 Part of the explanation for this is an understandable reaction to an
older form of church history that defines a denominational tradition and traces
its heroic narrative through time. By contrast, the best denominational
historians place their churches within broader historical and historiographical
developments. In terms of Irish Presbyterianism, there are fine studies of the
two colleges of the church by Robert Allen and Finlay Holmes; Allen also
produced a biography of the historian James Seaton Reid, and Holmes’s
biography of Henry Cooke and surveys of Irish Presbyterian history are
unsurpassed.36 Interest in Presbyterian theological and intellectual life has been
fitful, though a handful of studies of significant figures provide a summary of
their thought.37 The most impressive biographical studies are of rather (p.13)
idiosyncratic characters. R. J. Rodger’s unpublished study of James Carlile is a
thorough examination of the life of an ardent evangelical who championed
missionary activity amongst Irish Catholics and clashed with Henry Cooke over
subscription and non-denominational education.38 Similarly impressive is Daniel
Ritchie’s examination of Isaac Nelson, a conservative Presbyterian critic of
religious revivals, an uncompromising opponent of American slavery, an Irish
Home Rule MP, and a successful clergyman in a working-class protestant area in
Belfast.39 Peter Brooke, J. W. Foster, and J. J. Wright have commented on the
intellectual culture of Presbyterianism in broad terms, and David Livingstone’s
many publications on Presbyterian responses to Darwin contain stimulating
discussions of the Irish experience.40 The present author’s own contributions
have covered a number of relevant themes that are significantly reformulated in
this work with additional evidence and new interpretations.
Most Irish historians are seemingly only interested in Presbyterians because

they were the founders of modern Irish republicanism in the 1790s, yet by the
1880s were overwhelmingly in favour of the Act of Union (1800) between Great
Britain and Ireland. Ian McBride’s superb study, Scripture Politics, charted the
complex relationships between religious principles, Enlightenment thought,
social exclusion, and petty jealousies that prepared the ground for the formation
of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast in October 1791 and Presbyterian
involvement in the 1798 rebellion against the ascendancy of the episcopal
Page 11 of 45
Introduction
Church of Ireland and British rule.41 The transformation of Presbyterians in the

nineteenth century from rebels to unionists and from theological liberals to
conservative evangelicals has continued to puzzle historians. In order to explain
this transition, a two-tradition model is employed to describe the Presbyterian
experience in Ireland. A. T. Q. Stewart claimed, ‘In each generation
Presbyterianism has shown an almost Manichean duality of outlook, Old Light
and New Light, fundamentalist and intellectual, extremist and moderate.’
Between 1750 and 1850 the balance within Presbyterianism moved from
Enlightenment-inspired theological and political liberalism towards conservative
and evangelical reaction. This was symbolized in the clash between Henry
Montgomery and Henry Cooke in the Synod of Ulster in the 1820s over the
divinity of Christ which ended with the expulsion of a handful of Arians and their
sympathizers. ‘The Church is likely to produce (p.14) Cookes and Montgomerys
in every age. On the whole there are more Cookes, for evangelical
Presbyterianism will always have a broad popular support, while New Light
views must of necessity be confined to a minority. The alternation between Old
Light and New Light theology readily coincided with an even older pulse in the
Presbyterian mind, that of revival and religious torpor. And New Light principles
have generally been correlated with liberal politics, Old Light with
conservative.’42
Scholars have found it easier to understand theologically liberal Presbyterians

and Presbyterian United Irishmen because they seem more modern and
implicitly secular. As a consequence, attention has been devoted to
Presbyterians in the eighteenth century who rejected human-composed
statements of religious faith, were explicit promoters of the Enlightenment, and
advocated toleration and, in some cases, the separation of church and state.
Non-subscription found institutional expression in the Presbytery of Antrim
(1726), the Remonstrant Synod (1830), and, eventually, the Non-Subscribing
Presbyterian Church of Ireland (1910).43 Yet, in terms of numbers, this
theologically liberal tradition was overwhelmed by conservative forms of
Presbyterianism, as the table, with figures from the 1880s, demonstrates.
Numbers Ministers Congregations
Presbyterian Church in Ireland 470,734 626 555
Unitarians* 12,543 35 33
Reformed Presbyterians 8,375 36 48
United Presbyterians 2,006 11 12
Original Seceders 1,442 9 12

*
Includes the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster, Presbytery of Antrim, Northern
Presbytery of Antrim
Page 12 of 45
Introduction
Source: Thomas Croskery, Irish Presbyterianism: Its History,

Character, Influence, and Present Position (Dublin, 1884), 44–6.
Furthermore, the simple binary between theological and political liberalism and
theological and political conservatism has been overturned. McBride’s work on
the eighteenth century demonstrated the significant involvement of theological
conservatives in the 1798 rebellion as well as the political conservatism of many
New Light ministers. In addition, Cooke’s marriage of evangelical religion and
conservative politics in the following (p.15) century was rejected by the clear
majority of his ministerial colleagues who shared his theological conservatism
but remained politically liberal for religious reasons and because of self-
interest.44
Evangelicalism was undoubtedly a dominant religious and cultural force in

nineteenth-century Ulster and a solvent of denominational identities. David
Hempton, Myrtle Hill, and others have demonstrated how it drew protestants
together in philanthropic and missionary activism, gender discourse, and a
popular Protestantism that sometimes provoked conflict with Catholics and
certainly informed unionist politics.45 The American scholar D. W. Miller has
offered a stimulating explanation for the growth and significance of
evangelicalism in Presbyterian Ulster. Miller has criticized scholars of
evangelicalism for spending too much time on the theological thought of
religious professionals and has sought to explain change as the product of the
interaction between official and popular religion. Miller identifies two types of
official Presbyterian religion, Old Light and New Light, and two types of popular
religion, old leaven and new leaven. Old leaven refers to the Presbyterianism
that emerged in the 1640s and is ‘logocentric’; salvation is gained by fidelity to
Presbyterian practices and having the right answers to theological questions. Yet
these answers were not fixed, and old leaven often involved haggling between
the clergy and the laity over the definition of what was orthodox. By contrast,
new leaven religion was conversionist and revivalist. This version of popular
religion displaced the old leaven in the early nineteenth century as Cooke
reintroduced full subscription to the Westminster Confession in 1836 and ‘took
all the fun out of being a Presbyterian’ by thus reducing the opportunities for
haggling.46 Miller has also suggested that the old leaven propensity to squabble
over doctrine had an afterlife in America amongst the Scots-Irish diaspora and
provided cultural and religious resources for the rise of protestant
fundamentalism in the twentieth century.47
Miller’s conceptualization is helpful but too schematic.48 It conceals continuities

in religious belief and practice. In particular, a personal relationship with (p.16)
Christ and commitment to Presbyterian doctrine and practice were not mutually
exclusive and the relationship could vary over time. Miller and others, for
instance, have argued that the 1859 revival was an attempt by the Presbyterian
leadership to reassert the denomination’s place in society, which had been
Page 13 of 45
Introduction
undermined by modernization. This analysis is helpful to a point, but it overlooks

the desire for revival and the measures to promote renewal put in place
throughout the church before 1859. It assumes that revival and evangelicalism
are defined in terms of enthusiasm and a populist religiosity of sudden
conversions and physical manifestations. This view limits the understanding of
evangelicalism to a particular form of religious experience and underplays the
specific variety of evangelicalism found within Irish Presbyterianism. At this
point, Miller’s sidelining of the religious ideas of ministers is unhelpful, as the
clergy who understood revival in gradual terms and attempted to check the
excesses of a minority of the laity were no less evangelical than those who could
testify to a dramatic religious experience. Moreover, the type of public worship
enjoyed—or endured—by lay Presbyterians in the nineteenth century was not
emotional and owed much to the Presbyterian theological tradition for its form
and content. Indeed, the longest-running controversy within the denomination
during the second half of the century was about the introduction of instrumental
music accompaniment into public worship. The dispute uncovered tensions
between social groups and geographical locations, as well as between the clergy
and the laity.49
Perhaps the most relevant interpretation challenged in this book is the argument
that the heresy trial of 1927 was the inevitable product of the acceptance of
theological liberalism by the Presbyterian elite and that Davey’s exoneration was
the triumph of a policy of theological inclusion. For supporters of Davey, the trial
was caused by fundamentalist malcontents who were a product of revivalism and
whose anti-intellectualism made them unable to understand complex theological
issues.50 Supporters of Davey’s opponents believe the trial was inevitable owing
to the capitulation of the leadership of the church to modernism that began with
the appointment of Professor Thomas Walker in the 1880s. Other prominent
landmarks on the doctrinal downgrade included sympathy for the ‘modernist’
United Free Church, the appointment of the ‘believing critic’ Professor David
Smith in 1909, the revision of the Code of the General Assembly between 1904
and 1911, and the charges of heresy brought against F. W. S. O’Neill in 1915 and
James Haire in 1926.51 Aside from accounts written by adherents of either side,
historians have also supported this interpretation. R. A. Wells notes that Irish
and American Presbyterians from the 1870s faced the (p.17) same challenges
from Darwinism and biblical criticism. They also had to determine ‘the degree to
which toleration of differing views would or could be allowed within the
fellowship of the church’, and whether to accept or reject modern methods was
‘the question that would rock the college at Belfast in the early years of this
century’. Like the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ of 1925, the Davey trial ‘was as
important for the resolution of the long-building controversy in Ulster as the
more celebrated event in Tennessee was for America. With historical hindsight,
we can now see that this trial was the turning point in the struggle for the soul
and mind of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.’ Ultimately, the struggle, as in
Page 14 of 45
Introduction
America, ended with the determination of the majority ‘to pursue a course of
ecclesiastical inclusiveness’.52 Does this narrative stand up to scrutiny? Was
there an inexorable move to the theological left? Did inclusion and liberalism
triumph in 1927?
The Place and Development of Presbyterianism in Ireland

This is a study of the Irish Presbyterian mind as developments concerning the
whole island provided the context in which Presbyterians thought about God and
the world. Their history, social profile, religious progress, political identity, and
attitude to higher education were shaped, but not wholly determined, by their
Irish context and experience. Presbyterians were overwhelmingly concentrated
in the northern Irish province of Ulster and, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, their
Ulster-British identity was often articulated against the Irish-Catholic other who
comprised between 75 and 80 per cent of the population. It was calculated in
1884 that out of the 482,557 Presbyterians in Ireland, only 19,105—just under 4
per cent of the total—lived in the other three Irish provinces of Leinster,
Munster, and Connaught.53 Yet, throughout this period, Presbyterians also had a
strong sense of their divine mission, that Ireland would be regenerated through
the example and influence of Presbyterian Ulster. This was reflected in the titles
of the largest Presbyterian denominations on the island before and after 1840—
the General Synod of Ulster (1691) was superseded by the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The General Assembly also made it clear in
1921 that they had never advocated the partition of Ireland and had ‘repeatedly
declared that we are anxious to remain within the Imperial Parliament and
immediately under its jurisdiction’. That said, (p.18) they accepted, with no
little self-importance, the formation of the state of Northern Ireland for ‘the sake
of peace’ and in the interests of stable government.54
Presbyterianism came to Ireland with settlers from Scotland in the early

seventeenth century.55 Many came as part of the official plantation of Ulster, an
attempt by James VI/I to pacify and improve the province after the Nine Years
War, and many more came to counties Antrim and Down in the east of the
northern province through the private schemes that proved more attractive to
would-be settlers. Despite the upheavals of the seventeenth century, the
Presbyterian presence in the north-east was consolidated by frequent pulses of
immigration from Scotland, most notably in the 1690s, and the formation of
church structures. The first presbytery on Irish soil met on 10 June 1642 and
though Presbyterians and their ecclesiastical arrangements faced significant
opposition from the Cromwellian regime and the restored Stuart monarchy, a
system of Kirk sessions and presbyteries emerged and a Synod of Ulster met for
the first time in 1691. By that stage, Presbyterianism had spread from its north-
eastern heartland into south and west Ulster as well as to other parts of Ireland.
Page 15 of 45
Introduction
It was during the mid-seventeenth century that Presbyterian doctrine and

church government was codified. The official theological position of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland is defined in the Westminster Confession of Faith
(1646). This confession was the product of both theological and political
imperatives. There was a general desire amongst Reformed/Calvinist protestants
throughout early-modern Europe to confess their distinctive theology, defend it
from opponents, and provide the basis for theological education. The various
Reformed confessions produced from the 1520s onwards served as ‘an authority
subservient to God’s scriptural Word and formative of God’s ecclesial
community’ by applying dogmatic theology to practical issues in church life.56
The Westminster Confession was characteristic of later Reformed confessions
with their ‘consistent pressure towards closer and more detailed definition of
doctrine’. This was in response to greater theological diversity within
Protestantism, not least the emergence of Arminian theology that did not accept
the Calvinist understanding of God’s sovereignty.57 An older generation of
scholars saw the Westminster Confession as a move away from the humanistic
thought of John Calvin towards a more rigid and scholastic form.
(p.19) Modern scholarship has overturned this supposed conflict between

Calvin and the Calvinists by demonstrating the breadth of the Reformed
tradition, which included Calvin but was not beholden to him, and that
scholasticism was a widely accepted theological method rather than a particular
philosophy.58 It has also reintroduced the importance of the historical context of
confessional statements. In that regard, the Westminster Confession was a
product of specific events in Britain and Ireland.59 Against the backdrop of the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the attempt by Charles I to impose uniformity
on the churches of Britain and Ireland, his parliamentary opponents in 1643
summoned an assembly of theologians to revise the theology, practice, and
structure of the Church of England and to promote unity with Scotland and
other protestant churches throughout Europe. In the summer, a Solemn League
and Covenant was agreed between Scottish and English opponents of Charles I;
Scots saw this as embodying a commitment to establishing a Presbyterian state
in Britain and Ireland, whereas the English saw it as a military alliance. Despite
differences over church government, the assembly produced the Larger and
Shorter Catechisms and the Westminster Confession of Faith, perhaps the pre-
eminent creedal expression of Reformed/Calvinist theology.
Reformed theology as expressed in the Westminster Confession is based on the

sovereign God to whom all glory is due.60 Famously, the Shorter Catechism
opens with the question ‘What is the chief end of man?’; ‘Man’s chief end is to
glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.’ The Westminster Confession begins with
a declaration of the divine inspiration and final authority of the sixty-six
canonical books of the Protestant Bible that were ‘to be the rule of faith and life’.
The authority of Scripture did not depend on the testimony of human authority
or the church, as in Catholicism, but depended solely upon God and was
Page 16 of 45
Introduction
confirmed by ‘the inward work of the Holy Spirit’. Though many passages of
Scripture were not easy to interpret, those things necessary for salvation were
clearly known and could be understood, and the best means of interpreting
Scripture was by the analogy of faith, that is, comparing Scripture with
Scripture. The Confession then provides an understanding of salvation based
upon the sovereign grace of God, covenant theology, and the life, death, and
resurrection of Christ. (p.20) Chapter 3 set out the doctrine of the ‘high
mystery’ of predestination whereby God before time preordained some to
eternal life and others to eternal damnation. The elect who were predestined to
eternal life were saved through Christ alone and within the context of covenant
theology, and the Confession offered ‘the first major Reformed confessional
exposition of the two covenant schema—the covenant of works and the covenant
of grace’.61 The Covenant of Works described Adam as head of the human race
who gained God’s favour through perfect obedience. As a consequence of the
disobedience of Adam and Eve, the guilt and punishment for sin were imputed to
humanity, who were unable to save themselves from their inherent rebellion
against God. God in his grace then entered into a Covenant of Grace that was
administered differently in the Old and New Testaments. At the heart of God’s
plan of salvation was the person and work of Christ, whose sacrificial or
vicarious death on the cross atoned for the sins of the elect, allowing them to
come to Christ in repentance and faith. Salvation was gained by God’s grace
through faith alone; faith itself was a product of grace and ought to be expressed
in personal holiness. God had ordained ‘means of grace’ consisting of preaching,
the sacraments, prayer, and Bible reading to call the elect to himself by the
influence of the Holy Spirit. Throughout this process, it was the Holy Spirit that
convicted individuals of sin, enabled them to respond positively to the Gospel,
and gave them the ability to live a holy life.
The twenty-fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession distinguished between

the universal invisible church, comprising ‘the whole number of the elect that
have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof’,
and the visible church, consisting of ‘all those throughout the world that profess
the true religion, together with their children’. The visible church could vary
according to its adherence to the purity of biblical principle, and even the purest
churches ‘are subject both to mixture and error’. In particular, the Pope was
identified as the antichrist of Revelation, as he ‘exalteth himself in the church
against Christ, and all that is called God’. The Confession then confirmed the
protestant view that there were only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, both ‘holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace’, access to which was
regulated through church discipline. The theological significance of both was
inseparable from the covenant relationship between the community of believers
and God, and in terms of baptism, this covenant extended to the children of
believers who were to be baptized into the visible church on the basis of the
promises of the covenant. The understanding of the sacraments rejected
Page 17 of 45
Introduction
baptismal regeneration (that baptism affected the spiritual regeneration of the

individual), believers’ baptism (that only those who made a profession of faith
were entitled to be baptized by full immersion), and transubstantiation (the
transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ). (p.21)
More generally, Presbyterian public worship was singularly plain and opposed to
set forms. The principal focus was on the preaching of the Word, though time
was set aside for Bible reading, public prayer, and unaccompanied singing of the
Old Testament Psalms.62
In terms of church organization, Presbyterians held that Jesus Christ was the
sole head of the church rather than the Pope or a monarch. They also believed
that the state had the duty to support true religion and were supportive of the
principle of an established church, though any such church ought to have
spiritual independence from state interference in its internal religious affairs.
Presbyterians rejected episcopal government in which the church was governed
from the top down by bishops who had responsibility for individual dioceses.
This model was followed by the Catholic Church and the protestant state
churches of England and Ireland. Both denominations, to varying degrees,
accepted the doctrine of apostolic succession, the theory that modern bishops
derived their authority to exercise the rights and privileges of Christian ministry
from their unbroken line of succession back to one of Christ’s apostles.
Presbyterians also rejected church government based solely on the local
congregation, a system usually associated with Independents,
Congregationalists, and Baptists. Instead, they followed ‘The Form of
Presbyterial Church Government’ adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1645.63
Presbyterians held that all ministers were equal and that the laity had a vital
role to play in the governance of the church as lay elders and in the choice of
their pastors. A hierarchical series of church courts provided the institutional
structure, from the Kirk session of the minister and elected lay elders who
looked after the local congregation, through the local presbytery comprised of
all the ministers and a representative elder from each congregation in a district,
to the annual synod or general assembly.
The Scottish origins of Presbyterianism, and their distinctive theology, church

structure, and plain public worship, marked Presbyterians as distinct in Ireland.
This was reinforced by their demographic and social profile as determined by
the economic development of Ulster.64 For their entire existence in Ireland,
Presbyterians have been a minority of a minority. Roughly speaking, over three-
quarters of the Irish population has been Catholic and a slim majority of
protestants were members of the established Church of Ireland with its
episcopal hierarchy and liturgy. Presbyterians were by far the largest group of
protestant Dissenters/Nonconformists, though there was a handful of Baptists
and Independents, as well as an important concentration of Methodists in south
Ulster by the early nineteenth century. Furthermore, Presbyterians remained
(p.22) overwhelmingly concentrated in the north-eastern counties of Antrim,
Page 18 of 45
Introduction
Down, and Londonderry. The Ulster character of the denomination was

reinforced by the industrialization of this region during the nineteenth century
and the formation of the state of Northern Ireland in 1921. The social backbone
of Presbyterianism was firmly within the middle ranks of society—substantial
farmers, merchants, professionals. The interests of farmers continued to
dominate the church throughout the nineteenth century, and in the 1890s the
General Assembly claimed that answering the land question would end the
demand for Home Rule. Yet the industrialization of the north-east and the
growing regional dominance of Belfast meant that the centre of gravity of the
denomination moved towards urban areas in the east. Presbyterians became
overrepresented in trade, commerce, and industry, and by 1914 they were
entrenched in the social and economic elite of the region. In addition,
Presbyterians were consistently better educated from primary to third-level
education in comparison with the members of other churches. Writing in 1884,
Thomas Croskery observed, ‘No peer now belongs to our communion; we have
several baronets and knights; we have a number of wealthy landed gentlemen;
but the bulk of our people belong to that independent middle class, which with
its compact force, its self-consistency, and its hardihood of character, forms the
strength of every advancing community.’65
Despite their steadfast support for William and Mary against James II in 1688–
90, Presbyterians found themselves in a confessional state in which access to
political power was dependent on membership of the Church of Ireland.66
Presbyterians were subject to legal restrictions and periodic harassment from
the authorities, though not to the same extent as Catholics. Though this eased as
the eighteenth century progressed, Presbyterians remained excluded from full
participation in a regime they had fought to establish and disadvantaged in a
land system that was dominated by Church of Ireland landlords. This bred
resentment against the status quo and contributed to large-scale emigration to
North America. Presbyterians from Ireland were instrumental in the formation
and spread of Presbyterianism in the New World and were often found at the
vanguard of the revolutionary cause in the 1770s. At the same time, support for
political reform in Ireland was stimulated by economic prosperity as an
influential Presbyterian middle class grew in strength owing to the
commercialization and industrialization of the Ulster economy as a consequence
of the growth of the linen industry. The new learning of the Enlightenment was
popular, as were the democratic ideas associated with the War of American
Independence and the French Revolution. Their subordinate status, experience
of economic growth, and exposure to radical ideas paved the way for the
Presbyterian origins of Irish republicanism and their involvement in the 1798
rebellion. The rebellion was the disastrous and bloody outcome of the growing
instability of Irish politics and society in the (p.23) 1790s and led directly in
1800 to the abolition of the Irish Parliament and the formation of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Page 19 of 45
Introduction
Religious developments in eighteenth-century Presbyterianism to a large degree

revolved around adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the
necessity of subscription.67 The Westminster Confession was adopted by the
Church of Scotland in 1646 and Presbyterians in Ireland adhered to its system of
theology throughout the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1698 the
Synod of Ulster resolved that all those licensed to preach ought to subscribe and
in 1705 those who had not subscribed were required to do so before ordination.
However, notice has already been made of a numerically small, yet socially
influential strand of theological moderatism that emerged in east Ulster. This
tradition claimed that subscription to human-made statements of religious faith
violated the protestant principles of the right of individual conscience and the
sole authority of Scripture. It also employed the Enlightenment values of reason
and toleration to substantiate their case. In the 1720s the Synod of Ulster, the
largest Presbyterian grouping in Ireland before 1840, was rocked by a
subscription controversy that eventually led to the formation of the non-
subscribing Presbytery of Antrim in 1726. Moderate New Light religion
developed in the Synod and by the 1780s a minority of presbyteries required
subscription from their ministers. Some clergy began to modify their
commitment to the Calvinist doctrines of original sin, election, and vicarious
atonement, and a handful adopted more heterodox positions, including Arians
who denied the full divinity of Christ.
However, most Presbyterians remained conservative, though this could

encompass a variety of meanings, including ritual observance, popular
understandings of belief and practice, and a commitment to confessional
principles. Many conservatives stayed in the Synod and were associated with an
amorphous Old Light party who supported subscription and Reformed theology.
Others were attracted by the arrival of Seceder Presbyterian preachers from
Scotland. The Secession in the 1730s occurred because there was a fear that
Calvinist doctrine was being set aside in the Church of Scotland and because of
opposition to lay patronage that challenged the right of ordinary church
members to choose their own ministers. Though in 1747 the movement split over
the terms of a new oath in Scotland into Burgher and Anti-Burgher factions, this
did not hamper growth in Ireland and the Secession spread rapidly in the second
half of the century. Burgher and Anti-Burgher synods were formed in 1779 and
1788, and in 1818 both united to form the ‘Presbyterian Synod of Ireland,
distinguished by the name Seceders’, comprising 114 congregations. In addition,
a minority of conservatives became Covenanters or Reformed Presbyterians who
believed in the perpetual obligation of the Scottish National Covenant of 1638
and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. For them, the Revolution (p.24)
settlement was fatally compromised as it did not recognize this obligation and
had allowed episcopacy to continue in England and Ireland.68
Page 20 of 45
Introduction
It was from the Old Light party and the Seceders that Presbyterian
evangelicalism emerged in late eighteenth-century Ireland. Throughout the
north Atlantic region, social crisis and political upheaval ‘created the
circumstances in which evangelicalism rose to cultural influence’ as it met the
needs of people thus affected from across the social and political spectrum. It
provided social elites with ‘a flexible worldview to define and defend religious
faith, but also to comprehend the moral, political, intellectual, and economic
workings of society’; at the same time, ordinary people were attracted to its
‘energizing ideal of spirituality that offered inner security even as it mobilized
groups for purposive action in the world’.69 Ulster protestants shared this
broader mood. Large-scale politicization, economic problems, martial law, and
the failure of the 1798 rebellion promoted the growth of evangelicalism and ‘the
potential of its moral creed and its anti-Catholicism to act as antidotes to civil
and political unrest’.70 Presbyterians filtered evangelical activism and religious
experience through their Reformed theology and Presbyterian organization, just
as other protestant groups elsewhere adapted evangelical priorities to their pre-
existing denominational, theological, and religious cultures. Evangelicalism
cannot simply be reduced to religious enthusiasm or the anachronistic use of the
term ‘fundamentalism’. It was a transatlantic movement that grew in a wide
range of geographical, political, social, and denominational contexts, all of which
shaped the particular form of evangelicalism that developed in specific locations.
The concentration on the final authority of the Bible, the need of personal
conversion, the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, and missionary activism
characterized the movement but each was expressed by different groups, in
different ways, in different locations. Presbyterians from the 1780s began to
emphasize missionary activity at home and overseas, an impulse that developed
throughout the following century.71 In addition to the flourishing associational
culture of evangelicalism, the various Presbyterian bodies created their own
home missionary agencies from the 1820s and a Foreign Mission was formed by
the General Assembly in 1840 to work in India and later in China. This was
followed in 1841 by a Jewish Mission that operated in Damascus and Hamburg,
in 1846 by a Colonial Mission that supplied over sixty ministers to (p.25) the
colonies within twenty years, and in 1855 by a Continental Mission that worked
with the French Reformed Church and the Waldensians in Italy. One of the most
successful agencies was the Female Association in Connection with the Foreign
Missions of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (1873), which was designed to
recruit and support female teachers and medical workers amongst women in the
East.72
Evangelicalism became a potent means for revitalizing the structures of

Presbyterianism. The Synod of Ulster in 1825 produced The Constitution and
Discipline of the Presbyterian Church, which sought to impose order on the
procedures and practices of church courts as well as to regulate public worship
and church discipline. Henry Cooke was instrumental in bringing the project to
Page 21 of 45
Introduction
completion and evangelical zeal supplied much of the motivation for institutional
reform.73 Cooke’s campaign against Arianism in the 1820s grew out of the
reforming impulse of evangelicalism in general and marked the beginning of it
becoming distinctly Presbyterian.74 The reform of church structures and
discipline in the 1830s was accompanied by a return to the compulsory and
unqualified subscription of all new ministers to the Westminster Confession of
Faith in 1836. A potent symbol of the institutional expansion of Presbyterianism
was the union in 1840 of the Synod of Ulster and the Secession Synod to form
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Over the next
century, the denomination underwent a remarkable transformation in structure,
finance, and bureaucracy. The 1825 Code was significantly revised and
expanded by the General Assembly in 1841, 1859, 1868, 1887, and 1912;
uniformity and exactitude of procedure were especially notable in the 1887
version. These revisions reflected the growing volume and complexity of the
business brought before the Assembly. In addition to the missionary directors,
the Assembly had four committees in 1841; this number had doubled by 1859,
but by 1887 there were no fewer than twenty-nine standing committees of the
General Assembly.75 In financial terms, the assets owned by the denomination
had risen from virtually nothing in 1840 to £994,496 17s 4d in 1890. From 1864
to 1890, (p.26) over £850,000 had been raised to improve or erect church
property (including two colleges), and the average ministerial stipend had risen
from £110 in 1854 to £177 in 1890.76 One observer noted in 1884 that, since
1840, around a half of all church buildings had ‘been built, rebuilt, or enlarged’,
and 391 manses had been erected.77 Barn-like meeting houses were replaced
with fashionable Classical, Gothic, and even Romanesque churches that
expressed the growing wealth and self-confidence of Presbyterians in the north
of Ireland. These various changes were symbolized with the opening of Church
House in 1905, a purpose-built headquarters for the church in the heart of
Belfast.78 For an anonymous author, the progress in church accommodation that
Church House represented paralleled the progress of Presbyterians in general
since the seventeenth century; ‘from that time the Church has steadily gained
visibility, and now in our new Assembly Buildings she has an evident capital for
her kingdom of influence and power’.79
The union of 1840 and the expansion of Presbyterian bureaucracy and activism
was attributed to a revival of religion since the turn of the century. Religious
revival was at the heart of the self-understanding of mainstream Presbyterians
after 1829 and the effort to promote further revival was seemingly justified
when a religious awakening swept Presbyterian Ulster in 1859.80 The trigger
was a revival in the United States in 1857, a potent reminder of the international
context in which Irish Presbyterians operated. From the early 1830s, they looked
to both Scottish and American Presbyterians for support and models to imitate.
They increasingly saw themselves at the centre of a Presbyterian international in
opposition to prelacy, popery, and infidelity.81 Their letter in 1832 to the
Page 22 of 45
Introduction
Presbyterian Church in the United States drew attention to ‘the excellence of

our form of church government, and its tendency to promote spiritual edification
—restrain vice—advance holiness, and preserve the spirit of unity in the bond of
peace’; it also articulated their desire to emulate ‘the revivals of vital godliness
in other Presbyterian Churches’. The Synod hoped that ‘the Great King of Zion
will continue to bless us, and will soon enable us to take a place among the
Presbyterian churches in the world, as one holding fast the truth, (p.27) and
walking in the beauty of holiness’.82 Presbyterians in Ireland looked to
prominent Presbyterian leaders in other countries for inspiration and guidance.
They first turned to Thomas Chalmers, the dominant British churchman of the
first half of the nineteenth century, leader of the evangelical party within the
Church of Scotland, and a theologian of remarkable range and erudition.83 After
the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, the Irish General Assembly
immediately made common cause with Chalmers’s Free Church of Scotland to
uphold Presbyterian principles and Reformed theology. Scottish influence was
soon augmented from the United States by Charles Hodge, who defined a
distinctive Princeton Theology as professor of systematic theology at Princeton
Theological Seminary and whose three-volume Systematic Theology (1872–3)
would become a textbook for ministerial students in the Irish church.84
The international dimension sharpened the Irish and Ulster identity of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland because their coreligionists recognized the
divine calling of the Irish church to convert Catholic Ireland. This was hardly a
realistic prospect given the lack of resources and will amongst the Irish
protestant minority and the growing assertiveness of the Catholic Church in
post-Famine Ireland; yet fundraising deputations were regularly sent by Irish
Presbyterians to Scotland and North America. They appealed to the self-interest
of Protestants in both regions who were alarmed at the influx of Irish Catholics
during and after the Famine and who sought to deal with this problem at the
source by funding missionary activity in Ireland.85 A prominent feature of
nineteenth-century Presbyterianism was its rediscovery of its divine mission in
Ireland. The earliest historian of the Irish church was Patrick Adair whose
manuscript history was left unfinished at his death in 1694. Adair was aware of
the faults of Scottish settlers in Ulster, but he considered that God’s plan ‘to
erect a new Tabernacle for himself in Ireland, and especially in the north parts
of it’, began with the formation of the first presbytery by the Scottish army in
June 1642.86 This divine calling to improve the spiritual and temporal condition
of Ireland from Presbyterian Ulster remained with Presbyterians. A secularized
version appeared amongst Presbyterian United Irishmen who sought to provide
leadership to Catholic Ireland in order to wean them from popery and to
promote liberty, equality, and fraternity. The missionary zeal of evangelicalism
refocused this sense of mission and Presbyterians asserted that their Bible-
based form of Protestantism was best equipped to improve and (p.28) convert
Catholic Ireland. By the 1840s a Mission to Roman Catholics existed and was
Page 23 of 45
Introduction
predicated on ‘a grand, bold, defiant Presbyterian self-confidence’, though the

bold rhetoric obscured a lack of Catholic converts.87
Yet the positive impact of Presbyterianism on material and spiritual progress

was a constant refrain from Presbyterians throughout this period. For them,
there was an inseparable connection between the purity of Presbyterian
principles and temporal progress and prosperity. ‘Dogma has made nations.
Calvinism is the strongest development of dogmatic theology the world has ever
seen, and, tried by the test of history and practical utility, it has shown an
immense superiority over every other system.’88 Professor John Edgar reminded
the students of the Presbyterian College Belfast in April 1857 that the ‘head-
quarters of their Church in this country had been placed in Ulster with
scepticism at their door and Romanism all around; and here, in this land, which
their fathers industry had cultivated and their religion had blessed, God had
given them a commission for the evangelisation of Ireland, to show what the
truth of the Bible, when acted upon in godly simplicity and godly sincerity, was
able to do’.89 A catechism of the history of the Irish Presbyterian Church
published in 1886 noted the obvious influence of Presbyterianism: ‘It has
promoted peace, industry, and loyalty—dispelled superstition—encouraged
education—and enriched the country.’90 In 1913 F. J. Paul remarked upon the
significant material and moral differences between Presbyterians and Catholics
in Ireland while noting that ‘the greatest authorities on archaeology and
ethnology’ claimed that both were ethnically the same. If this was accepted, ‘I
scarcely see any escape from the conclusion that the difference in character and
temperament is a crucial instance of the influence of our type of Reformed
Faith.’91
This sense of mission had significant implications for how Presbyterians

understood their position in Catholic Ireland and within the United Kingdom.
The continued social and political dominance of the Church of Ireland irked
Presbyterians and meant that many were associated with political reform,
criticized the continued ascendancy and theological errors of the established
church, and opposed the Orange Order and its maintenance of Anglican
ascendancy.92 Yet despite differences amongst protestants, and between political
liberals and conservatives within the denomination, virtually all Presbyterians
(p.29) and Irish protestants more generally were committed to the Union
between Ireland and Great Britain and opposed any efforts to have it repealed.
For them, the Union guaranteed their identity, social position, and economic
wealth. In particular, the economic prosperity of the north-east illustrated for
Presbyterians the benefits of access to the trade networks of the British Empire.
The wealth brought to Ulster by linen manufacture and shipbuilding was
attributed to the Union as well as protestant thrift and industry. In January 1841
Cooke challenged opponents of the Union to ‘Look at Belfast, and be a Repealer
—if you can.’93 Protestant unity against Home Rule was also promoted by the
disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1870, which removed the
Page 24 of 45
Introduction
Presbyterian sense of being victims of an unjust ecclesiastical settlement, and

the rising influence of evangelicalism in the Church of Ireland, which lessened
denominational antagonisms.
In addition to protestant unity, developments within nineteenth-century Irish

Catholicism reinforced the Presbyterian commitment to Union.94
Ultramontanism had a substantial impact on the Irish church under the
leadership of Cardinal Paul Cullen, who personified the move towards a more
rigorous, disciplined, and Roman form of Catholicism. The extension of papal
power over national Catholic churches and the promulgation of papal infallibility
in 1870 created concern amongst protestants throughout the world as it seemed
to confirm their fears about a despotic religious system that sought to trample
the rights of individuals and subject national political systems to papal control.
The threat of Rome Rule was even more acute in Ireland owing to the fact that
Catholics comprised over three-quarters of the population. As the demand for
the return of an Irish parliament grew, the threat of Catholic democracy to the
material interests and religious liberties of protestants throughout Ireland
became alarming. In that context, the Presbyterian sense of divine mission was
employed by unionists as their campaign increasingly focused on the exclusion
of Ulster from any Home Rule scheme (see Chapter 2). On Ulster Day, 28
September 1912, over 450,000 men and women pledged themselves to oppose
Home Rule by signing documents modelled on the Solemn League and Covenant
of 1643. The author was Thomas Sinclair, a prominent Presbyterian merchant
and founder member of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland. Sinclair
had no doubt about the contribution of Presbyterians to the prosperity of Ulster
and the greatness of the United Kingdom. They were in (p.30) Ireland as
‘trustees’ of their fellow British citizens, ‘having had committed to us, through
their and our forefathers, the development of the material resources of Ulster,
the preservation of its loyalty, and the discharge of its share of Imperial
obligations’. Unionists had discharged the trust placed in them and presented an
impregnable case for maintenance of the union ‘on the grounds of racial
sentiment, inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the
United Kingdom and of the Empire’.95
Irish Home Rule was enacted by the Imperial Parliament in September 1914 but
its implementation was suspended until the conclusion of what came to be
known as the Great War.96 Presbyterians supported the war effort as did most
other groups in Irish society who saw military service as a means of
demonstrating commitment to their respective political visions. Yet Irish politics
was transformed during the war years as the overreaction of the state against
the leaders of the rebellion of Easter 1916 radicalized Irish nationalism and led
to the eclipse of a constitutional form by strident republicanism. The end of the
European conflict witnessed a guerrilla war between the Irish Republican Army
and British forces that eventually led to the partition of Ireland into a twenty-six-
county Irish Free State and a six-county state of Northern Ireland. The
Page 25 of 45
Introduction
Presbyterian Church had not explicitly advocated partition, but they now found
themselves in a protestant majority in Northern Ireland and soon adapted to the
new circumstances. The sectarian violence and upheaval of the first years of the
Northern Ireland state subsided and the Presbyterian Church soon found itself
‘at ease in Zion’, assuming the legitimacy of the state and the duty of all—
including the Catholic minority—to live as good citizens.97 The Northern Ireland
Parliament met in the Presbyterian College, Belfast, from 1921 to 1932, and two
Presbyterian clergymen—Robert Moore and Robert Corkey—were ministers of
state for agriculture and education respectively.98 As with the Church of Ireland
and the Catholic Church, the General Assembly did not seriously consider the
causes of division in Ireland until the 1960s, and it virtually ignored the
criticisms of the state offered by the Catholic minority.99
In addition to demography, social profile, religious reform, missionary calling,

and unionist politics, ministerial training and higher education were also shaped
by Irish circumstances. Presbyterians were committed to education and
intellectual progress. Elementary education was necessary so that individuals
could read the Bible for themselves, and an educated ministry was essential in
(p.31) order to properly expound and apply biblical teaching. According to W.
D. Killen, ‘as the works and ways of God are so many commentaries on His Word,
endeavour to make all the rays of truth which emanate from literature or science
subservient to the illustration of the sacred oracles. Geography and history,
anatomy and mathematics, logic and philology, all pay tribute to the Gospel.
Despise no source of useful knowledge.’100 Between 1840 and 1910, the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland ordained almost 1,500 ministers, who in general
were better educated, better paid, and enjoyed better conditions of employment
than the Nonconformist clergy in England and Wales. By 1900, the ministry of
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland was almost a wholly graduate profession—
the percentage of non-graduates in the previous sixty years was 6.75 per cent
per decade—and the overwhelming majority of ministers had been educated in
Ireland.101
Yet the demand that ministers be intellectually prepared was balanced with their
calling to be pastors and preachers, and there was always a fear of the ‘evils of
an unconverted ministry’.102 As theological scholarship and education became
increasingly professional and technical, Professor J. G. Murphy reminded
theological students in 1878 that proclaiming Christ crucified in familiar
language ought to be their goal. ‘If we would persuade we must also use
language intelligible to our audience. The academic style must be kept in
abeyance as a foreign tongue to the ordinary hearer. The technicalities of
philosophy and even of theology must give way in a great measure to the
familiar phrases of ordinary life.’103 Similarly, the Revd D. A. Taylor in 1900
observed, ‘A minister is a herald, not a philosopher. His business is to declare the
good tidings and tell of the coming King. Until this is done, nothing is done.’ The
‘vast majority’ of church members did ‘not want to hear the latest results of
Page 26 of 45
Introduction
critical investigation’; ‘he who in preaching aims at feeding the hungry with the
Bread of Life will only use the results of modern criticism as a means of
establishing and not as an instrument of unsettling our faith in the inspiration
and authority of the Word of God’.104 Perhaps because of such warnings, there
was no persistent popular criticism of the ministers and colleges of the church
before the 1920s. Yet it was the case that the balance between learning and
piety, common to all Christian traditions, both sustained and complicated
Presbyterian attitudes to modern criticism and shaped an Irish Presbyterian
response.
(p.32) The beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a transformation in

the education and training of Irish Presbyterian ministers.105 In the previous
century, Presbyterians on account of their religion had been excluded from the
only university in Ireland, the University of Dublin, Trinity College, and had to
obtain their liberal arts education by travelling to Scotland, particularly the
University of Glasgow. From 1815 a college education in liberal arts and
theology for Presbyterian students was offered in Ireland through the collegiate
department of the Belfast Academical Institution. Inst, as it became known,
reflected the growing economic importance of Belfast and the desire of its
middle-class citizens to cultivate higher culture and useful learning. Recognizing
that Presbyterians were the major source of students, the Board of Management
suggested that the various Presbyterian bodies should appoint their own
theological professors. Samuel Edgar was appointed by the Seceders in 1815
and Samuel Hanna for the Synod of Ulster in 1817, and both were instrumental
in the extension of Calvinistic evangelicalism amongst Presbyterian ministers.
One of the principal reasons why the Presbyterian ministry became a graduate
profession was the decision of the two Presbyterian bodies to accept the General
Certificate offered by Inst as the equivalent of a university degree. Though
additional chairs in biblical criticism and church history were founded during
the 1830s, disputes over the teaching of moral philosophy and the appointment
of Arian professors to the theology faculty in November 1840 led the General
Assembly to sever ties with Inst.
Fortunately for Presbyterian students, the expansion of secular and

denominational higher education was a prominent feature of Irish society in the
nineteenth century.106 In 1845 three Queen’s Colleges in Belfast (QCB), Cork,
and Galway were established, and in 1850 the Queen’s University of Ireland was
incorporated. The Queen’s University was eventually replaced in 1879 by the
Royal University of Ireland (RUI) and in 1907 that too was superseded by the
Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB). A special meeting of the General Assembly
in August 1846 agreed to permit their students to attend QCB, and college
education in Ireland became the norm for Presbyterian ministers thereafter. The
BA degree offered by QCB was innovative in its provision of botany, chemistry,
English, physical geography, and zoology, subjects that were not offered by
London University. More generally, the ‘courses … were innovative and bold in
Page 27 of 45
Introduction
conception. What they lacked in depth they gained in breath, and each year’s
course was planned in an orderly progression.’107 This growth in non-
denominational higher education was mirrored by the establishment of
denominational institutions, with the opening of the Presbyterian College, also
(p.33) known as Assembly’s College, Belfast, in 1853, Magee College, Derry, in
1865, and the incorporation of the Presbyterian Theological Faculty of Ireland by
royal charter in 1881. In 1926 QUB established a Faculty of Theology and
Assembly’s College was accepted as an affiliated college the following year.
Teaching in the Belfast Presbyterian College began on 2 January 1854 with the
denomination expecting her future ministers ‘to be scholars, able expositors—
profound, eloquent, and practical ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ’.108 The
original faculty comprised eight professors—Samuel Hanna (theology), John
Edgar (theology), Robert Wilson (biblical criticism), W. D. Killen (church history),
Edward Masson (biblical and ecclesiastical Greek), William Gibson (Christian
ethics), J. G. Murphy (Hebrew), Henry Cooke (sacred rhetoric and catechetics)—
the last four of whom had been appointed by a special meeting of the General
Assembly in September 1847. The only lay person on the staff was Masson, a
supporter of Greek independence from the Ottoman empire who held various
diplomatic and academic appointments before coming to Belfast. He was
professor of biblical and ecclesiastical Greek from 1847 to 1853, but he was not
a popular teacher and fell out of favour with the General Assembly, who
abolished the chair in 1854.109
Students of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland now had access to third-level

education through QCB and a fully funded theological college in Belfast.
However, a minority of the General Assembly remained committed to a college
under their control that offered a full arts and theology curriculum. This was
eventually realized with the opening of Magee College, Derry, in 1865.110 Yet the
dispute over Martha Magee’s endowment, which she left in her will in 1847,
prompted ‘one of the fiercest ecclesiastical contests ever waged in the Irish
Presbyterian Church’. Over the following years, the Assembly divided into a
‘Belfast party’ and a ‘country party’ who believed that ‘the Queen’s College
arrangement was no better than that of the old Belfast Institution’ as the
Assembly had no means of determining the appointment of professors.111 Derry
was eventually chosen as the site of the new college and, after further delay,
Magee College was finally opened in October 1866 with seven professors—
Samuel Marcus Dill (theology), Thomas Witherow (church history and pastoral
theology), Richard Smyth (oriental literature and hermeneutics), John Robinson
Leebody (mathematics and natural philosophy), John Park (metaphysics and
ethics), J. Thoburn McGaw (logic, belles-lettres, and rhetoric), and H. S. McKee
(Latin and Greek). Magee had the twin function of providing an education for
ministerial candidates and ‘to provide teaching of a (p.34) University type for
any who sought to receive it’.112 Magee struggled in its early years with
insufficient endowments and a limited curriculum, but the beneficial impact of
Page 28 of 45
Introduction
the Intermediate Education Act (1878) and the formation of the RUI (1879)
meant that the number of students doubled to around a hundred per anuum in
the 1880s and they now could compete for scholarships with students from other
colleges connected with the RUI. In 1883 Magee admitted female students and
soon had more female graduates than any other college in Ireland. In 1907 a
much-needed injection of funds was received when Basil McCrea left £70,000 to
the college, which was renamed the McCrea-Magee College. A year later, the
college was shocked to discover that it had not been included in the provisions
of the Irish Universities Act. It was decided to affiliate Magee with Trinity
College, Dublin, an arrangement that placed students in a better position than
before and which lasted until the 1960s.
Magee College had an ethos of its own, but differences between a Belfast party
and supporters of Magee were not fuelled by theological disagreements. Given
the various challenges to traditional formulations of Christianity during the mid-
Victorian period, the colleges were charged with maintaining Calvinistic
evangelicalism and preparing Presbyterian ministers for the apologetic task of
upholding orthodoxy. The publication in 1858 of a summary of the course
content offered in the Belfast college demonstrated its similarity to Princeton
Theological Seminary. The curriculum they offered was heavy on intellectual and
theological content in the form of biblical studies, church history, and systematic
theology; practical theology was taught, though instruction was often confined
to homiletics.113 At the opening of Magee in October 1865, the Banner of Ulster
was adamant that the ministers of their church must take their place amongst
the defenders of Reformed and evangelical theology against ritualism in
worship, mysticism in philosophy, and a general ‘unsparing criticism’. At the
inauguration ceremony, the moderator of the General Assembly, the Revd David
Wilson of Limerick, declared that the Westminster standards were the basis of
theological education and urged his audience to ‘Hold fast the old truths—
reverence old forms. And to you I say—drill your recruits and keep step yourself
to the music of the old system until you can find a more inspiring and correct
harmony.’ The Westminster theology ‘has a history, world-wide and renowned. In
modern times its influence has been felt in every struggle—civil or religious—for
human advancement; and wherever dangers were thickest, difficulties greatest,
and the battle fiercest, among the hearts to dare and the arms to do the noblest
and bravest deeds, have been the hearts that were warmed, and the arms that
were braced for action by the faith (p.35) and love of the old theology.’ The
staff and students of Magee were ‘representatives of a martyr Church, whose
mission it has been to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
saints’, and Wilson called on them to imitate their forefathers by maintaining the
truth. This was all the more important as the signs of the times pointed to ‘a
grand struggle’ with ‘Romanism and Puseyism and Infidelity’.114 The task of the
colleges to train students to defend and commend the faith was repeated in 1880
by the Witness. The extension of education meant that a ‘much larger number in
Page 29 of 45
Introduction
the community than formerly have their minds exercised in regard to theological
questions’. Periodicals, pamphlets, and newspapers ‘circulate the doubts and
sceptical opinions which prevail so largely not only among scientists but among
the half educated’. In ‘these days of unrest and seething thought, and testing
examination of traditional beliefs, it is absolutely necessary that ministers of the
Gospel should be able and widely-read, and well-furnished theologians’. The
Witness was deeply concerned that if ministers could not respond adequately or
failed to demonstrate sympathy with the struggles of the laity, ‘the pulpit will
lose its hold upon the thoughtful and the anxious and the troubled, and men will
be confirmed in their doubts’.115
To meet the intellectual challenges of the age, the colleges required well-
equipped libraries; yet both institutions experienced financial constraints and
indifference that were fortunately offset by the generosity of benefactors.116
Before 1800, Presbyterians had no formal library to compare with those of the
Church of Ireland in individual dioceses and Trinity College, Dublin, though
there were circulating libraries in some presbyteries. After the opening of
Belfast Inst, small class libraries were formed for Synod of Ulster and Seceder
divinity students, and they also had access to the college library and other local
collections such as the Linen Hall Library (1788). The General Assembly in 1840
appointed a committee to raise funds for a library, and within twenty years
students had access to this collection especially for them as well as their class
libraries. The holdings were augmented by bequests and donations, including a
substantial amount of Irish material from James Seaton Reid. In 1862, there
were 1,350 volumes in Belfast, to which was added a complete set of Jacques-
Paul Migne’s edition of the Latin and Greek Church Fathers. After 1872, the
Belfast library flourished thanks to a donation of £1,500 from Caroline Gamble
that allowed for the purchase of an additional 2,500 volumes in London. The
Report of the College Committee to the General Assembly in 1873 claimed that
the library would ‘now compare favourably … with any theological library in the
country’. In addition to the Church Fathers, it contained ‘the works of the
greatest of the schoolmen and Jewish rabbins, of the best Biblical critics and
expositors, of the reformers of Germany, France, Switzerland, and England, and
of the Puritan divines’. There were also ‘the choicest collections of the (p.36)
Ecclesiastical Councils, the State Records of Britain, and many extremely rare
and valuable works on the history and antiquities of Ireland’, as well as facsimile
‘copies of the celebrated Siniatic, Vatican, and Alexandrine Manuscripts’.
Despite the holdings, the committee believed that the church had never grasped
the importance of a well-resourced library and that important additions must be
secured. ‘An institution which aspires in any sense to be a seat of learning must
possess a well furnished and well endowed library.’ How else were professors to
be stimulated to undertake research and students to ‘be both humbled and
elevated by the silent but impressive lessons which a well appointed library
cannot fail to teach’?117 These needs were partly met by a donation of 6,000
Page 30 of 45
Introduction
volumes to the Belfast college from the personal library of William Fleming
Stevenson in 1887. Magee was even more indebted to generous benefactors.
Thomas Witherow donated his own collection of the 222 volumes of the Latin
Fathers edited by Migne, while James Gibson, a lawyer and trustee of the
college, purchased the 108 volumes of the Greek Fathers. Witherow also secured
for Magee the seventeenth-century manuscript minutes of the Antrim and
Laggan meetings, as well as those of the presbyteries of Bangor and Down, and
bequeathed an invaluable collection of Irish pamphlets.118
Sources and Content

In order to trace the reaction of Irish Presbyterians to the intellectual challenges
of the age, this study utilizes the publications and public pronouncements of
ministers, writers, and professors. The manuscript remains of notable Irish
Presbyterians are scanty and Union Theological College in Belfast only holds
some lecture notes of William Todd Martin and Henry Wallace as well as an
extensive, though inaccessible archive belonging to J. E. Davey. Before 1800,
Irish Presbyterians published sermons and political tracts; after 1800, they
extended their publications to substantial theological treatises, biblical
commentaries, works of historical scholarship, and a wealth of pamphlet
literature on specific issues.119 Many of these were published in Ireland, but
Presbyterians also worked with British and American publishers, including T&T
Clark in Edinburgh, Hodder & Stoughton, Thomas Nelson & Son, Oliphant,
Anderson & Ferrier, and James Clarke & Company. More important, perhaps,
was their contribution to the periodical press, including the great titles of
Victorian periodical literature—British Quarterly Review, Contemporary Review,
Fraser’s (p.37) Magazine, London Quarterly and Holborn Review, and North
British Review. They were especially well represented in the protestant
theological journals and periodicals of Britain and North America, particularly
the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, Biblical Repertory and Princeton
Review (and its successor titles), Journal of Sacred Literature, and the
Theological Monthly. Reviews that appeared in these periodicals are also an
important means of assessing the scholarly reception of the works of Irish
Presbyterian scholars and reference to these will be made throughout.
Over the course of the century, Irish Presbyterians published a number of

periodicals of their own for different audiences, including Orthodox Presbyterian
(1829–40), Christian Freeman (1832–6), Irish Presbyterian (1853–8, 1895–1942),
Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review (1862–73), Presbyterian
Churchman (1877–94), and the Christian Banner (1873–1909).120 The expanding
newspaper industry in Ulster meant that there was extensive coverage of the
opening and closing addresses delivered at both colleges, verbatim reports of
the debates in the General Assembly, and letters pages in which ordinary
Presbyterians could engage with the views of ministers and professors.
Important titles used extensively in this work include the Belfast News-Letter
(1737–) and the Northern Whig (1824–1963); specifically Presbyterian
Page 31 of 45
Introduction
newspapers are invaluable, especially the Banner of Ulster (Belfast, 1842–70),

Derry Standard (1836–1964), and, most important of all, the Witness (1874–
1941).121 Virtually all the material used in this study was produced by men.
Female Presbyterians played a crucial role in the maintenance and upkeep of the
denomination and made significant contributions as missionaries to the study of
comparative religion and medicine, but they contributed little directly to themes
discussed in this work.
The first four chapters examine the principal intellectual concerns of Irish
Presbyterians between 1830 and 1914—confessional theology, church history,
mental and natural science, and biblical criticism. Chapter 1 offers an
examination of the triumph of evangelical Calvinism in the early nineteenth
century and how this prompted a return to Presbyterian first principles and the
Westminster Confession of Faith. It examines the theological instruction received
at Belfast Inst, the demand for a ‘converted ministry’, the expulsion of the Arians
from the Synod of Ulster in 1829, the return to unqualified subscription to the
Westminster Confession in 1836, and the formation of the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1840. These events were interpreted by
contemporaries as a revival of religion and as a further stimulus to revival,
which seemed to be vindicated when a religious awakening broke out in the
summer of 1859. It proved difficult to control the enthusiasm unleashed during
the awakening and both respectable and populist forms of revivalism and
spirituality flourished in the following decades. However, (p.38) support for
respectable revivalism was combined in both colleges of the church with a
renewed commitment to the Westminster Confession of Faith. This was informed
by the influence of Princeton Theology and led Irish Presbyterian writers such as
Robert Watts, Thomas Croskery, and Henry Wallace to defend confessional
theology against moderating voices in Scotland and America, and the Irish
church did not suffer the heresy trials that occurred amongst their coreligionists
between 1880 and 1914. Yet moderating voices were heard within the church,
though these ‘believing critics’ were not subjected to sustained criticism either
by their fellow ministers or by the laity. More significant in weakening
adherence to confessional labels was the widespread support for revivalism. By
1914 the Presbyterian Church in Ireland remained theologically conservative,
though conservatism could come in confessional and evangelical varieties that
were often blended together in various, sometimes conflicting forms.
The self-understanding and theological complexion of the Irish Presbyterian

Church was formed by a powerful historical narrative that is examined in
Chapter 2. Not only was this important for Presbyterians, but it also provided
the rhetoric and resources for unionist political opposition to the threat of Home
Rule for Ireland after 1886. For Presbyterians, their form of church government
most closely approximated to the pattern laid down in the New Testament and
developed in Ireland by Saint Patrick and his successors in the fifth and sixth
centuries. The heart of their narrative, however, was the seventeenth-century
Page 32 of 45
Introduction
Scottish origins of the church and how Presbyterian religion had made Ulster
flourish in comparison to the other three Irish provinces. In the 1830s this
interpretation was immortalized in James Seaton Reid’s The History of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The narrative Reid offered developed early-
modern Presbyterian interpretations by Patrick Adair and James Kirkpatrick and
was followed by every subsequent denominational historian. It provided the
blueprint for religious revival and placed Presbyterianism at the heart of the
historical development of the United Kingdom. Yet Reid’s interpretation was
assailed by a handful of influential High Church Anglicans who sought to
unchurch Presbyterians by claiming apostolic succession. This assault was
reinforced by the continued social and political dominance of the Church of
Ireland and led historians such as W. D. Killen, Thomas Witherow, and James
Heron to examine the history of the early church in order to dismiss the
exclusive claims of so-called prelates. Of course, Presbyterians were also
concerned about refuting the exclusive claims of Catholics, though the General
Assembly at no time decided that the Roman Catholic Church was not part of the
visible church of Christ. However, the demand for Irish Home Rule raised the
threat of Rome Rule and the Presbyterian narrative of history was conspicuously
employed during the unionist campaigns against Home Rule from 1886 to 1914.
The philosophical and methodical underpinnings of the Presbyterian mind are

considered in the following chapter, which examines what Presbyterians
understood by ‘science’ and their approach to both mental and natural
philosophy. It considers how they shared with Scottish and American
Presbyterians a (p.39) commitment to Francis Bacon’s definition of induction
and Scottish Common Sense philosophy. These commitments laid the
foundations for their understanding of the relationship between the two books of
God and nature. Indeed, Bacon’s approach was especially important for Common
Sense moral philosophers, who included his method in their definition of the
Scottish tradition of philosophy. The importance of Belfast Inst in inculcating
these principles is discussed and how different understandings of the
relationship between reason and revelation were exposed in disputes over
geology and moral philosophy in the 1830s. By the 1850s, these were largely
resolved and Presbyterians approached mental and natural philosophy with
confidence. Much of the reason for this was the influence of Thomas Chalmers
and James McCosh, the professor of logic and metaphysics at QCB from 1851.
McCosh was the last major exponent of Common Sense realism, pioneer
chronicler of the Scottish philosophy, and president of the College of New Jersey
from 1868. Though they objected to the materialistic implications of On the
Origin of Species, Presbyterian reaction to evolutionary theory was muted until
1874, when John Tyndall delivered his infamous presidential address to the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in Belfast. Tyndall
scandalized local Presbyterians—and religious opinion worldwide—by
attempting to exclude theologians from the discussion of physical science. Led
Page 33 of 45
Introduction
by Robert Watts, Irish Presbyterians were incensed and found it almost

impossible to interpret evolution apart from Tyndall’s materialism. Yet the heat
of controversy soon was exhausted. Though Irish Presbyterians rejected
naturalism and materialist forms of evolution, they continued to seek an
accommodation with science, accepted non-Darwinian forms of development,
and pursued strategies for reconciling the Genesis narratives with modern
discoveries. In comparison with the United States, they were remarkably relaxed
about evolutionary science, and opposition to evolution would not play a major
role in the upheavals of the 1920s.
Part of the explanation for Irish Presbyterian attitudes to evolution was that they
were more concerned about challenges to the plenary inspiration of the Bible.
Some of the earliest chairs in biblical criticism in the United Kingdom were
established by Irish Presbyterians in the mid-1830s. The first professor for the
Synod of Ulster was Samuel Davidson, a prolific author who would achieve
notoriety as the first British martyr for modern criticism when he was dismissed
from the Lancashire Independent College in 1857. Yet while he was in Ireland,
Davidson was a conservative evangelical and, with Robert Wilson, used Common
Sense philosophy and induction to defend conservative understandings of
biblical authority and hermeneutics against historical criticism from continental
Europe. During the 1850s and 1860s, Presbyterians such as James Gracey
Murphy and Josias Leslie Porter replied to the challenges posed by John William
Colenso and the contributors to Essays and Reviews (1860). They vindicated the
historical accuracy and authority of the Bible through textual analysis and
detailed descriptions of the Near East. By the 1870s, however, (p.40) the
biggest challenge came from so-called believing critics in Presbyterian Scotland
who attempted to use modern critical methods in order to defend evangelical
experience. This was too much for Robert Watts, Matthew Leitch, and others,
who consistently criticized the views propounded by William Robertson Smith,
George Adam Smith, and A. B. Davidson. Despite their efforts, believing
criticism found supporters in Ireland, including Thomas Walker in Belfast and
two Free Church scholars at Magee, David Smith and James Strahan. There was
some initial opposition to Walker’s views, but this passed, and Strahan’s
appointment was opposed on the grounds that he was Scottish and was
suspected of being lukewarm in his opposition to Home Rule, not primarily
because he was a believing critic.
The final chapter examines the background, course, and outcome of the heresy
trial of James Ernest Davey in 1927. The Great War led to the partition of Ireland
and the formation of the state of Northern Ireland; it also stimulated a general
concern with reconstruction through social improvement, Christian unity,
structural reform, and updating theological thought. The experience of war and
the widespread adoption by theologians of modern psychology led theologians
such as Davey and his colleague James Haire to express Christian faith in
psychological categories and to emphasize the centrality of religious experience
Page 34 of 45
Introduction
over traditional doctrinal formulations. At the same time, personal conversion

and spiritual experience swept protestant Ulster in the early 1920s. In the
context of partition and sectarian violence, W. P. Nicholson and others offered
conversion and holiness as answers to contemporary threats. Though criticized
for his populism, Nicholson was supported by the leadership of the Presbyterian
Church, who recognized that he was able to address a working-class audience
that they struggled to engage. The popularity of Nicholson’s brand of revivalism
demonstrated the strength of conservative evangelicalism in Northern Ireland,
and when in 1925 the General Assembly considered changing the formula of
subscription to the Westminster Confession, conservatives within the church
were deeply concerned. A Bible Standards League was organized, principally by
lay members of the church, and the Revd James Hunter of Knock congregation
in east Belfast tabled heresy charges against James Haire and then Davey. The
overwhelming support Haire and Davey received from the church led Hunter
and some of his associates to leave the denomination to form the Irish
Evangelical Church, and the taint of heresy would later be exploited by Ian
Paisley when he formed his Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in 1951. Yet the
overwhelming majority of the Bible Standards League were not separatists and
continued their ultimately successful opposition to any changes to the formula of
subscription. In some ways, the exoneration of Davey was a victory for inclusion,
but Davey had to work hard to demonstrate his conservative credentials and did
so by appealing to his own personal evangelical experience.
Notes:
(1) B. S. Gregory, ‘The Other Confessional History: On Secular Bias in the Study
of Religion’, History and Theory, 45 (2006), 132–49; David Nash, ‘Reconnecting
Religion with Social and Cultural History: Secularization’s Failure as a Master
Narrative’, Cultural and Social History, 1 (2004), 302–25; Michael Saler,
‘Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographical Review’, American Historical
Review, 111 (2006), 692–716.
(2) M. A. Noll, ‘Traditional Christianity and the Possibility of Historical

Knowledge’, in Bruce Kuklick and D. G. Hart (eds), Religious Advocacy and
American History (Grand Rapids, MI, 1997), 30–2.
(3) Michael Burleigh, Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European
Dictators to Al Qaeda (London, 2006); Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The
Coming of Global Christianity, 3rd edn (Oxford, 2011).
(4) J. T. McNeill, ‘The Interpretation of Protestantism during the Past Quarter-

Century’, Journal of Religion, 6 (1926), 524.
(5) John Coffey and Alister Chapman, ‘Introduction: Intellectual History and the
Return of Religion’, in Alister Chapman, John Coffey, and B. S. Gregory (eds),
Page 35 of 45
Introduction
Seeing Things their Way: Intellectual History and the Return of Religion (Notre
Dame, IN, 2009), 15.
(6) Peter Hinchcliff, God and History: Aspects of British Theology 1875–1914
(Oxford, 1992), 8.
(7) M. A. Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship and the
Bible, 2nd edn (Leicester, 1991), 33.
(8) B. M. G. Reardon, Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge,

1966), 2, 20–1. See also B. M. G. Reardon, Liberal Protestantism (London, 1968).
(9) W. R. Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, new

edn (New York, 1982), 2.
(10) Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining

Progressive Religion 1805–1900 (Louisville, KY, 2001), p. xvi.
(11) Harvey Hill, ‘Modernism’, in I. A. McFarland (ed.), The Cambridge

Dictionary of Christian Theology (Cambridge, 2011), 318–19.
(12) Kathryn Lofton, ‘The Methodology of the Modernists: Process in American

Protestantism’, Church History, 75 (2006), 378, 401.
(13) D. M. Thompson, Cambridge Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Enquiry,

Controversy and Truth (Aldershot, 2008), 179
(14) K. T. Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886 (Oxford, 1998), 427.
(15) C. G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation

1800–2000, 2nd edn (London, 2009); Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the
1960s (Oxford, 2007).
(16) For instance, David Hempton, Evangelical Disenchantment: Nine Portraits of

Faith and Doubt (New Haven, CT, 2008); D. N. Livingstone, Dealing with Darwin:
Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution
(Baltimore, MD, 2014); Norman Vance, Bible and Novel: Narrative Authority and
the Death of God (Oxford, 2013).
(17) Timothy Larsen, Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century

England (Oxford, 2006), 253.
(18) D. N. Livingstone, ‘Science, Region, and Religion: The Reception of

Darwinism in Princeton, Belfast, and Edinburgh’, in R. L. Numbers and John
Stenhouse (eds), Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion,
and Gender (Cambridge, 1999), 8.
Page 36 of 45
Introduction
(19) Douglas Jacobsen and W. V. Trollinger Jr (eds), Re-Forming the Center:

American Protestantism, 1900 to the Present (Grand Rapids, MI, 1998).
(20) J. C. Livingstone, Religious Thought in the Victorian Age: Challenges and

Reconceptions (London, 2007).
(21) Mark Hutchinson and John Wolffe, A Short History of Global Evangelicalism
(Cambridge, 2012).
(22) M. A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and
the Wesleys (Nottingham, 2004); W. R. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical
Awakening (Cambridge, 1992).
(23) D. W. Bebbington, Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local

and Global Contexts (Oxford, 2012); M. J. McClymond (ed.), Encyclopaedia of
Religious Revivals in America, 2 vols (Westport, CT, 2007).
(24) D. W. Bebbington, ‘Evangelicalism’, in David Fergusson (ed.), The Blackwell

Companion to Nineteenth-Century Theology (Oxford, 2010), 235, 248. See also
D. W. Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and
Moody (Leicester, 2005).
(25) M. A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

(New York, 2002).
(26) J. H. Moorehead, Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture

(Grand Rapids, MI, 2012).
(27) Michael Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century: College and Creed in English
Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston,
ON, 1991).
(28) G. M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, new edn (New York,
2006), 221, 320n.
(29) D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the

1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989), 181, 182, 220–3. See also D. W. Bebbington
and David Ceri Jones (eds), Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in the United
Kingdom during the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2013).
(30) Martin Wellings, Evangelicals Embattled: Responses of Evangelicals in the

Church of England to Ritualism, Darwinism, and Theological Liberalism, 1890–
1930 (Carlisle, 2003), 320.
(31) D. A. Johnson, The Changing Shape of English Nonconformity, 1825–1925

(New York, 1999), 10, 184.
Page 37 of 45
Introduction
(32) A. C. Cheyne, The Transforming of the Kirk: Victorian Scotland’s Religious

Revolution (Edinburgh, 1983), 200.
(33) I. D. Campbell, Fixing the Indemnity: The Life and Work of Sir George Adam
Smith (1856–1942) (Carlisle, 2004); R. A. Riesen, Criticism and Faith in Late
Victorian Scotland: A. B. Davidson, William Robertson Smith and George Adam
Smith (Lanham, MD, 1985).
(34) Marianne Elliot, When God Took Sides: Religion and Identity in Ireland—
Unfinished History (Oxford, 2009).
(35) D. W. Miller, ‘Religious History’, in L. M. Geary and Margaret Kelleher (eds),

Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Guide to Recent Research (Dublin, 2004), 61–76.
(36) Allen, College; Holmes, Magee; Holmes, Henry Cooke (Belfast, 1981);
Holmes, Our Irish Presbyterian Heritage (Belfast, 1985).
(37) e.g. David Chapman, ‘Hero or Heretic? The Liberal Theology of James Ernest
Davey’ (University of Manchester PhD thesis, 2016); Laurence Kirkpatrick,
‘William Dool Killen (1806–1902): A Presbyterian Perspective on Irish
Ecclesiastical History’, in Jacqueline Hill and Mary-Ann Lyons (eds),
Representing Irish Religious Histories: Historiography, Ideology and Practice
(Basingstoke, 2017), 85–100; F. S. Leahy, ‘James Gracey Murphy: The Man and
his Work’, Reformed Theological Journal, 10 (1994), 17–34; R. E. L. Rodgers, The
Life and Works of Robert Watts (Tain, 1989).
(38) R. J. Rodgers, ‘James Carlile, 1784–1854’ (QUB, PhD thesis, 1973).
(39) Daniel Ritchie, Isaac Nelson: Radical Abolitionist, Evangelical Presbyterian,

and Irish Nationalist (Liverpool, 2018).
(40) Peter Brooke, Ulster Presbyterianism: The Historical Perspective, 1610–1970

(Dublin, 1987; Belfast, 1994); J. W. Foster, ‘Changes of Address: Tyndall, Darwin
and the Ulster Presbyterians’, in Bruce Stewart (ed.), Hearts and Minds: Irish
Culture and Society under the Act of Union (Gerrards Cross, 2002), 40–70; J. J.
Wright, The Natural Leaders and their World: Politics, Culture and Society in
Belfast, c.1801–32 (Liverpool, 2012); Livingstone, Dealing with Darwin, 58–87.
(41) I. R. McBride, Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism

in the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998).
(42) A. T. Q. Stewart, The Narrow Ground: Aspects of Ulster 1609–1969 (London,

1977), 99.
(43) e.g., in addition to McBride, Scripture Politics, ch. 2, see A. D. G. Steers,

‘Samuel Haliday (1685–1739): Travelling Scholar, Court Lobbyist, and Non-
Subscribing Divine’, in Ruth Savage (ed.), Philosophy and Religion in
Page 38 of 45
Introduction
Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies (Oxford, 2012), 112–40, and M. A.

Stewart, ‘Rational Dissent in Early Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, in Knud
Haakonssen (ed.), Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in Early
Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, 1996), 42–63. For the nineteenth
century, see R. G. Crawford, ‘A Critical Examination of Nineteenth-Century Non-
Subscribing Presbyterian Theology in Ireland’, 2 vols (QUB, PhD thesis, 1964).
(44) A. R. Holmes, ‘Covenanter Politics: Evangelicalism, Political Liberalism, and

Ulster Presbyterians, 1798–1914’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010), 340–
69; Holmes, Henry Cooke, 145–86.
(45) e.g. David Hempton and Myrtle Hill, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster
Society 1740–1890 (London, 1992); Janice Holmes and Diane Urquhart (eds),
Coming into the Light: The Work, Politics and Religion of Women in Ulster 1840–
1940 (Belfast, 1994); J. N. I. Dickson, Beyond Religious Discourse: Sermons,
Preaching and Evangelical Protestants in Nineteenth-Century Irish Society
(Milton Keynes, 2007).
(46) D. W. Miller, ‘Did Ulster Presbyterians have a Devotional Revolution?’, in J.

H. Murphy (ed.), Evangelicals and Catholics in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
(Dublin, 2005), 38–54, 46.
(47) D. W. Miller, ‘Ulster Evangelicalism and American Culture Wars’, Radharc: A

Journal of Irish and Irish-American Studies, 5–7 (2004–6), 197–215; ‘Searching
for a New World: The Background and Baggage of Scots-Irish Immigrants’, in W.
R. Hofstra (ed.), Ulster to America: The Scots-Irish Migration Experience, 1680–
1830 (Knoxville, TN, 2012), 1–23.
(48) The following analysis is developed more fully in A. R. Holmes, The Shaping
of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770–1840 (Oxford, 2006).
(49) R. S. Tosh, ‘An Examination of the Origin and Development of Irish

Presbyterian Worship’ (QUB, PhD thesis, 1983).
(50) A. A. Fulton, J. Ernest Davey (Belfast, 1970).
(51) W. J. Grier, The Origin and Witness of the Irish Evangelical Church (Belfast,
1945).
(52) R. A. Wells, ‘A Transatlantic Analysis of Irish and American Presbyterianism

in the 1920s and 1930s’, Journal of Presbyterian History, 77 (1999), 45, 49, 50,
54.
(53) Thomas Croskery, Irish Presbyterianism: Its History, Character, Influence,

and Present Position (Dublin, 1884), 44.
(54) Cited in Holmes, Irish Presbyterian Heritage, 144–5.
Page 39 of 45
Introduction
(55) Presbyterian History in Ireland: Two Seventeenth-Century Narratives by

Patrick Adair and Andrew Stewart, ed Robert Armstrong, A. R. Holmes, Scott
Spurlock, and Patrick Walsh (Belfast, 2016); Raymond Gillespie, ‘The
Presbyterian Revolution in Ulster, 1600–1690’, in W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood
(eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History, 25
(Oxford, 1989), 159–70.
(56) R. M. Allen, ‘Confessions’, in P. T. Nimmo and D. A. S. Ferguson (eds), The

Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology (Cambridge, 2016), 28–43, 42.
(57) R. A. Muller, ‘Reformed Confessions and Catechisms’, in T. A. Hart (ed.), The

Dictionary of Historical Theology (Carlisle, 2000), 481.
(58) R. A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological

Tradition (New York, 2003); H. J. Selderhuis (ed.), A Companion to Reformed
Orthodoxy (Leiden, 2013).
(59) John Spurr, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics, and Society in Britain,
1603–1714 (Harlow, 2006), 85–117.
(60) User-friendly introductions to the theology of the Westminster Confession

are S. B. Ferguson, ‘The Teaching of the Confession’, in A. I. C. Heron (ed.), The
Westminster Confession in the Church Today (Edinburgh, 1982), 28–39 and C. B.
van Dixhoorn, Confessing the Faith: A Reader’s Guide to the Westminster
Confession of Faith (Edinburgh, 2014). Quotations are taken from The
Confession of Faith: The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, with the Scripture-
Proofs at large; together with the Sum of Saving Knowledge (Contained in the
Holy Scriptures, and Held forth in the Said Confessions and Catechisms,) and
Practical Use thereof. Covenants, National and Solemn League.
Acknowledgement of Sins, and Engagement to Duties. Directories for Publick
and Family Worship. Form of Church-Government, &c., of Publick Authority in
the Church of Scotland. With Acts of Assembly and Parliament, Relative to, and
Approbative of, the Same (Edinburgh, 1894).
(61) Muller, ‘Reformed Confessions and Catechisms’, 483.
(62) ‘The Directory for the Publick Worship of God’, in Confession of Faith, 285–
300.
(63) ‘The Form of Presbyterial Church-Government’, in Confession of Faith, 301–

20.
(64) For general developments in Ulster, see Liam Kennedy and Philip
Ollerenshaw (eds), Ulster since 1600: Politics, Economy, and Society (Oxford,
2013); and as these relate to Presbyterians, J. R. B. McMinn, ‘Presbyterianism
and Politics in Ulster, 1871–1906’, Studia Hibernica, 21 (1981), 127–46.
Page 40 of 45
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
during the Lybian campaign, stung Italians to the quick, was the
promoter of the scheme, and that the shelving of M. Pichon, who
was a friend of Italy’s, was its corollary.
Italy was made to feel that France’s attitude towards her was
systematically semi-hostile. No one act, excepting the concentration
of the French fleet in the Mediterranean, was deemed radically
serious, but the endless sequence of pin pricks was construed as
evidence of a disposition which was as unfriendly as seemed
compatible with neighbourly relations. Among these things, the
protection of Italian religious communities in the East was taken by
the Germans as the text for repeated diatribes against France for her
unfriendly conduct towards her Latin sister. Atheistic France, it was
sneeringly remarked, insists on protecting in the East the very
communities which she has driven from her own territories in
Europe, not because of the love she bears them, but by reason of
her jealousy and hatred of Italy.
I remember one dispute of the kind which arose about the house
of an Italian religious congregation in Tripoli of Syria. All the
members save one being Italians, and having demanded the
protection of their own Government, were entitled to have it, in virtue
of a convention on the subject between France and Italy a few years
before. The French Ambassador in Rome was anxious to have the
question put off indefinitely, although at bottom there was no
question at all, seeing that the case had been provided for. During
the negociations and discussions that needlessly went on for fully
two years, Germany lost no opportunity to rub France’s
unfriendliness into Italy’s memory, and to prove that Italy’s one
natural ally is Austria-Hungary.
These things are of yesterday, and it needs some little time to
deaden the recollection of them.
When the present war was on the point of breaking out, one of
the first misstatements spread by the diplomacy of the two
Prussianized allies was Italy’s promise to co-operate with them
against France, in return for the stipulated cession to her—as her
share of the spoils of war—of Tunis, Savoy, and Nice. That this
proposal was to have been made is certain. Whether the intention
was actually carried out I am unable to say. But the archives of the
French Foreign Office possess an interesting and trustworthy report
on the subject, only one item of which is erroneous, to the effect that
Italy had succumbed to the temptation.
Writing in the first half of June last on the subject of Italy’s foreign
policy, I expressed myself in the following terms:
The problems with which Italian statesmen have for several

decades been grappling are uncommonly difficult and delicate.
Probably no European Government has in recent times been
confronted with a task so thorny as that with which the
responsible advisers of the three kings of United Italy have had
to deal. And the tact, resourcefulness, and suppleness with
which they have achieved a set of results which theoretically
seemed unattainable and incompatible with each other
command the admiration of competent judges. Italy’s foreign
policy resembles nothing so much as one of those egg-dances
which Pope Leo X. delighted to witness after his Lucullan
banquets. And the deftness and rapidity with which the moves
are made and steps taken that seem certain to crush this egg or
that, yet do no damage to any of them, are amazing. But unlike
the papal dancers, the statesmen of the Consulta can look
forward to no prize, to no popular applause. Abroad they are
accused of double-dealing, and at home of pursuing a costly
policy of adventure. France charges them with ingratitude and
perfidy. In Great Britain they are sometimes set down as
schemers. In Vienna they are mistrusted, while Berlin indulges in
scepticism or holds its judgment in suspense. And to crown all,
they are blamed or repudiated by a certain section of their own
people, whose welfare they have been laboriously endeavouring
to promote.
Italy’s policy in its general lines has been imposed by
circumstances and tempered by statesmanship. Far from
embodying Utopian notions or manifesting herself in dubious
ventures, she has kept well within the limits of the essential, the
indispensable. By making common cause with the two military
Powers of Central Europe and forming the Triple Alliance, she
steered clear of a conflict with Austria-Hungary which, so far as
one can discern, there was no other way of avoiding. Italian
irredentism in the Dual Monarchy and the rivalry of the two
States in the Adriatic had confronted them both with the dilemma
of choosing between a formal alliance and open antagonism.
The decision took the form of a bold move, but a necessary one.
Italy’s adherence to the League gave deep offence to France,
and led to their estrangement, which was followed by several
press campaigns and one damaging tariff war. And in spite of
the subsequent reconciliation, the relations between the two
Latin nations have never since been marked by genuine
cordiality. The press of France and many eminent politicians
there resent it as a sort of racial treason that Italy should be
bound by treaty to Germany and Austria-Hungary. Russia, who
for a time cultivated a close friendship with the Italian people,
was surprised and pained by the seemingly needless and
ostentatious renewal of the Triple Alliance in the year 1912, a
twelvemonth before it had terminated. Even British publicists
have found much to condemn in the attitude of the Italian
Government during the Balkan war and down to the present
moment. During all this time the cultivation of rudimentary
neighbourliness, to say nothing of friendship between the Italian
and the Austrian peoples as distinguished from their
Governments, has been for the statesmen of both countries, and
in particular for those of Rome, a work of infinite care, ingenious
expedients, and painful self-discipline, openly deprecated by an
influential section of the Italian press.
The alpha and omega of Italy’s foreign policy in the present
is the maintenance of her actual position in the Mediterranean,
and in the future the seasonable improvement of that position,
and in every case the prevention of a shifting of the equilibrium
such as would alter it to her disadvantage. To attain these
objects is an essential condition of Italy’s national existence, and
calls for the constant exercise of vigilance and caution
alternating with push and daring by her responsible rulers. It
behoves her, therefore, to be well affected towards France,
friendly with Austria, amicable with Great Britain, to hold fast to
the Triple Alliance, and to give no cause for umbrage to the
Triple Entente. In a word, it is the prestidigitation of
statesmanship. And her diplomacy has acquitted itself well of the
task. The sum of the efforts of successive Governments has
been to raise Italy to a unique position in Europe, to make her a
link between the two rival groups of Powers, to one of which she
herself belongs, to bestow upon her the second place in the
Triple Alliance, and to invest her with enormous influence for
peace in the councils of Europe. To grudge her this influence,
which has been uniformly exerted for the best interests of
Europe and her own, implies imperfect acquaintance with those
interests or else a leaning towards militarism. Every
development which tends to strengthen Italy, diplomatically and
politically, tends also to augment the safeguards of public peace
and to lessen the chances of a European conflict. On these
grounds, therefore, were there none other, a violent domestic
reaction against the policy that has scored such brilliant results
would be an international calamity. Happily, there is good hope
that the bulk of the nation is wiser and also stronger than the
section which is answerable for, and in secret sympathy with, the
15
recent excesses.
As the Mediterranean State par excellence, Italy cannot
contemplate the present distribution of power on the shores of
that sea with genuine complacency. The grounds for
dissatisfaction are rooted in the history of her past and in her
apprehensions for the future. None the less, the status quo in
Europe being hallowed must be respected under heavy pains
and penalties. And the policy of the Consulta is directed to its
maintenance, because any modification of it in favour of another
State, great or small, would infallibly drive Italy out of her
quiescence and strain her to press with all her energies and at
all risks in the direction of a favourable readjustment. That is why
seventeen years ago the Austrian and the Italian Foreign
Secretaries concluded the so-called noli me tangere Convention,
by which each of the two allies undertook to abstain from
meddling with Albania, to uphold Turkish rule there, and, failing
that, to establish self-government. It was in virtue of the same
principle that during the Balkan war Italy supported Austria-
Hungary in frustrating Servia’s attempt to divide up Albania
among the allies and obtain for herself access to the Adriatic. As
long as the Adriatic continues to present the same essential
factors as to-day, the Italian Government will not swerve from its
present attitude. But if once those factors or their relative
positions towards each other underwent a change, the whole
scaffolding of self-denial and everything that rested upon that
would fall to pieces like a house of cards. And that scaffolding
supports the peace of Europe.
On her Eastern shore Italy possesses no port capable of
serving as a thoroughly suitable base for naval operations.
Brindisi is at best a mere makeshift; Venice is no better. Italy’s
rival, Austria, on the other hand, is luckier. Cattaro, Sebenico,
and Pola serve the purpose admirably, giving the Austrian navy
a distinct advantage in this respect. It must, therefore, be gall
and wormwood to Italian politicians to think that an ideal port,
Valona, on the Albanian coast, a few hours from Italy, lies
unutilized because each State grudges it to the other on grounds
which cannot be reasoned away. Valona, incorporated in the
Habsburg Monarchy, which is already so well equipped on the
Adriatic both for defence and attack, would turn the scale against
Italy, upset the equilibrium which is at present accepted as a
stern necessity, and might even unchain the forces of war. The
prospect of kindred eventualities forbids Austria to allow that
magnificent naval base to fall into the hands of her rival, who,
holding the key to the Adriatic, could close the Otranto Canal
and immobilize the fleet of the Dual Monarchy.
It would be unfair, therefore, to contend that the mainspring
of Italy’s seemingly anti-Slav policy is racial bitterness or political
narrow-mindedness. A natural instinct of self-preservation
underlies it which neither argument nor sentiment can affect. Her
present wish and the object of her endeavours is to enable
Albania to maintain her independence and to keep the
equilibrium in the Adriatic intact. And it is sheer inconceivable
that any Italian Government should deviate from this line of
action....
It is entirely misleading, therefore, to assert that Italy’s
alliance with the two military Powers of Central Europe is the
result of eclectic affinities or to fancy that by cajolery or threats
she can be moved to sever the links that bind her to the concern.
I entertain not the slightest doubt that the French Ambassador in
Rome, M. Barère, whose infinite patience and marvellous tact
drew France and Italy very close together for a while, would be
the first to recognize that the breaking-up of the Triple Alliance is
a hopeless enterprise, and an aim of questionable utility from
any point of view. Outsiders, whose opinions are moulded by the
daily press, may be excused for thinking otherwise. The renewal
of the treaty in the year 1912, a full year before its expiry, has
been uniformly construed as an indication of Italy’s resolve to
emphasize her friendship with her allies, and this interpretation
appeared to be borne out by a number of concomitant
circumstances and in particular by the comments of the
European press. It was likewise assumed that at the same time
the Treaty was supplemented by a naval convention turning
upon the future action of the Triple Alliance in the Mediterranean.
I investigated these reports in Rome and elsewhere, and I
received convincing evidence that they were both equally
groundless. No new clause touching the naval forces of the
Alliance, or indeed dealing with anything else, was added to the
Treaty. It was renewed as it stood. And the early date at which it
was signed was credibly explained to me as the outcome of a
legitimate eagerness on the part of Italy to see reaffirmed by
Austria-Hungary the noli me tangere Convention which acted as
a bar to encroachments, territorial or other, on Albania.
Between France and Italy the cordiality established mainly
by the exertions of M. Barère has of late years undergone a
marked change, and while the two Governments were
endeavouring to smooth over their differences and deal amicably
with each contentious matter as it cropped up, the press of each
country was bombarding the other with taunts and reproaches
which rendered the task of diplomacy unnecessarily difficult. And
British publicists, for reasons which lie near the surface, felt
inclined to take sides with their French colleagues, without
perhaps investigating with sufficient closeness and care the
origin of the estrangement. Those unfriendly utterances, some of
them the effects of mere misunderstandings, run through
contemporary political history like a red thread through a piece of
white cambric.
Italy’s solicitude for friendship with France and Great Britain
is prompted by interest as well as sentiment. For she sorely
needs peace, recognizes the need, and is exerting herself to the
utmost to insure it. And this indisputable fact might profitably
serve as the starting-point of one’s reasoning on the subject, and
likewise as a safe basis for the attitude of the statesmen
interested. For a long time, it is true, the occupation of Tunis by
France in 1887 was resented by every public man in the
Peninsula. The ensuing tension was accentuated as much by
the manner as by the policy of Crispi. The Abyssinian campaign
made matters worse, seeing that the Abyssinians were believed
to have received their arms and ammunition from the French.
During all those untoward incidents, Great Britain was found on
Italy’s side. The Franco-Italian war of tariffs raised mutual
animosity to its highest power, after which a reaction set in which
led to the conclusion of the Mediterranean agreements with
France and England.
During the Lybian war Italy seized two French steamers, the
Manuba and the Carthage, for alleged contravention of
international law, and sent them to Cagliari. France protested,
and M. Poincaré took up such a decided position in the matter
and gave it such vehement expression that all Italy was
unanimous in holding him as the destroyer of the good relations
laboriously established by M. Barère and the Consulta. And the
affront has not yet been forgotten. The next grievance had its
source in the action of the British Government, which confided to
France the protection of her Mediterranean interests, and
encouraged the Republic to keep the bulk of its warships in that
sea. This preponderance of the French fleet in Italy’s own sea
was regarded by the Government of the Peninsula as an
unfriendly act, owing to its special bearings on their relative
naval strength there. And the author of this obnoxious innovation
was believed to be the Republic, which had induced Great
Britain to acquiesce.
Lately Italy asked for an economic opening in Asia Minor,
into which every Great Power of Europe was penetrating. That
the demand was not unreasonable is shown by the fact that it
has since been complied with. In view of that contingency,
therefore, it would have been well to examine it without bias,
instead of opposing it with vehemence. For Great Britain is no
longer the most puissant State in the Midland Sea, and
circumstances may one day arise in which she will be in want of
an ally there. And Italy is her most natural partner. The
circumstances that she is a member of the Triple Alliance is no
bar to this prospective co-operation. For the Triple Alliance is a
defensive combination. It provides for a certain well-defined
eventuality, but outside that sphere Italy is untrammelled.
The pith of the matter, then, is that British and French
publicists are wont to lay undue stress on Italy’s alliance with
Germany and Austria-Hungary. That engagement is but a single
facet of her activity. There are others more enduring. She is
obliged to protect her special interests and is also free to
cultivate her special friendships. Paramount among those
interests is the maintenance of peace, and chief of those
friendships is that with Great Britain and France. Even the Triple
Alliance was founded as an association for the prevention of
war, and hitherto it has not drifted into aggression. Italy’s
influence in that concern is growing, and together with it her
facilities for upholding the pacific policy with which she has
uniformly identified herself. And the more steadily her economic
well-being and her political prestige develop, the greater will be
the weight which as second member of the Alliance she can
16
throw into the scale of peace.
Italy occupies a unique position in the polity of Continental

Europe. Whereas all other Great Powers owe much of what they
have and are to successful wars, Italy is indebted for her rapid
progress and growth chiefly to the arts of peace and the triumphs of
diplomacy. And as she is an essentially pacific and cultured State,
whose policy is inspired solely by national interests, it stands to
reason that her statesmen will take heed not to endanger what she
already possesses and what she may reasonably hope for in the
future by any hasty move, and least of all by impulsively exchanging
peace for war. In plain English, she will be guided by events, and it
would be mere childishness to expect to see her rush into the arena,
moved by a sudden outburst of sentimentality. And as yet the
national interest is not deemed to have become a decisive motive.
For this reason the importunity of her ex-allies is more likely to
damage than help the cause in which it is employed. The Teutonic
belligerents, too, are wasting their breath when they hold out the
annexation of Tunis, Savoy, and Nice as the price of her co-
operation, just as the Entente Powers would be doing were they to
endeavour to entice her to their side by dangling maps of Italia
irredenta and Valona before her eyes. Italian statesmen may be
trusted to gauge the situation aright, and when the upshot of the
mighty struggle can be forecast, to make no miscalculation. They
may also be credited with decision enough to take their final stand in
good time. But above all else, it should be borne in mind that Italy
will be guided solely by the promptings of her national interests. She
will hardly consider these sufficiently guaranteed by a scrap of paper,
and still less by a German promise of one.
Respecting one important consideration Italian statesmen will
hardly be content to suspend their judgment or to cherish illusions.
However satisfied in mind they may be that their neutrality was
warranted by the aggression of their German and Austrian allies,
they cannot ignore the contrary thesis which is firmly held by every
thinking German and Austrian in the two Empires. The Kaiser, his
Chancellor, the Evangelical theologians, the men of letters of the
Fatherland, Count Bernstorff in Washington, all hold that Germany
and Austria are but defending themselves against unprincipled
aggression. And the corollary of this declaration is that Italy is guilty
of the monstrous crime of regarding her treaty obligations as a
worthless scrap of paper. For the moment impunity is the result of
powerlessness to punish the criminal, and will continue only as long
as its cause is operative.
That this and other equally momentous aspects of the thorny
problem are receiving due consideration may be taken for granted.
CHAPTER VII
THE TWELFTH HOUR
Although the Austrian ultimatum to Servia was so worded and the

time accorded for a reply so limited as to ensure its rejection,
misgivings were, as we saw, felt and uttered in Vienna and Budapest
that Servia would knuckle down and execute the humiliating behests
of the Ballplatz. For this was a consummation which was deemed
highly undesirable. The carefully laid plan would have become
difficult of realization had Austria’s terms been acquiesced in
unreservedly. It would have rendered a military expedition
superfluous and left Servia’s army intact. Hence the exhaustive
precautions adopted for the purpose of provoking a negative answer
to the ultimatum from Belgrade.
On July 23rd, while the Franco-Russian festivities were at their
height, and M. Poincaré and the Tsar were announcing to the world
their ultra-pacific strivings, the bolt fell from the blue. What will
Russia say? people asked in Western Europe. Well, the Russian
Foreign Office, as we now know, was informed by Austria of the text
of the Note only seventeen hours after it had been presented, and
only thirty-one hours before the time limit had lapsed! The little case
thus made of Russia by the Teutonic allies was meant to be clearly
conveyed by this studied affront. It had been decided in Berlin and
Vienna that Russia must and would remain passive.
Delay was the only danger apprehended in Vienna, and nothing
was left undone to prevent its occurrence. M. Pasitch, the Servian
Premier, who appears to have had an intuition of what was brewing,
let it be known before the Austrian Note was presented that he was
absent from Belgrade and was going abroad. His substitute was
nominated. But in Vienna they were on the alert, and M. Pasitch
received from that city an urgent telegram notifying him that the
representations which the Austro-Hungarian Government were
drawing up would be delivered in Belgrade almost immediately, and
that their tenor was such as to necessitate his presence in the
capital. Thereupon the Premier hastened back to Belgrade.
From the first inception of the Austro-German plan of concerted
action, the parts of each of the actors were assigned. Servia was to
be stung into utterances or action which would warrant resort to an
Austrian punitive expedition, but before this Russia was to be
warned that if she aided or abetted her protégé and issued a
mobilization order against Austria, a counter-move would at once be
made by Germany, who would mobilize, not as a demonstration, but
for war. This warning was to serve as an efficacious deterrent. If
Russia, it was argued, can be got to realize that even partial
mobilization on her part will provoke not merely general mobilization
by Austria, but war with Germany and with Austria-Hungary, her zeal
for the Southern Slavs will be damped, and she will entrench herself
behind diplomatic formulas. This conviction was deep-rooted. It
formed one of the postulates of the Austro-German scheme.
Evidences of it are to be met with everywhere. But by way of making
quite sure, private letters were written by Continental statesmen to
their friends in the interested Governments—letters like that which
the Kaiser himself once penned to Lord Tweedmouth—impressing
upon them the gravity of the situation, and adjuring them to realize
that this time Austria and Germany were playing no mere game of
bluff, but were in downright earnest, and that if peace was to be
maintained at all, it could only be by inducing Russia to forego
mobilization.
That, too, was the burden of many of my own messages to the
Daily Telegraph, beginning with the very first. Thus on July 28th I
telegraphed:
The moment Russia mobilizes against the Dual Monarchy,

the German Empire as well as Austria-Hungary will respond, and
then the object of these military operations will be pursued to the
bitter end, with the results so clearly foreseen and so graphically
described by Sir Edward Grey in his proposals.
In the interests of European peace, therefore, which can still
be safeguarded, in spite of the hostilities now going ahead, it is
essential that every means of friendly pressure should be
thoroughly exhausted before a provocative measure such as
mobilization is resorted to. For mobilization by Russia, Germany,
and Austria will connote the outbreak of the long-feared general
Continental war.
In the assumption that Russia would be partly intimidated and

partly talked over by her French allies and English friends as soon as
these learned what tremendous issues hung in the balance, the two
Teutonic Governments laid it down from the start that no Power
would be permitted to intervene between Austria and Servia in any
shape or form. These two States must compose or fight out their
quarrel as best they could without the good offices or advice of any
foreign Government. “No discussion will be allowed,” I accordingly
telegraphed; “no extension of time will be granted.” All these
limitations were elements of the pressure brought to bear upon
Russia directly through her friends and ally. I sought to make this
clear in one of my messages to the Daily Telegraph, in which I wrote:
Meanwhile, Austria’s allies have taken their stand, which is

favourable to the action of this Government and to the
employment of all the available means to localize the eventual
conflict. It is further assumed that Great Britain will, if hostilities
should result, hold aloof, and that France will make her influence
17
felt in preventing rather than waiting to localize the struggle.
But Russia needed no deterrents, if Austria’s ostensible aim

were her real one, if she were bent only on obtaining guarantees for
Servia’s good behaviour in future. For the Tsardom was peaceably
disposed and extremely averse to war. M. Sazonoff’s attitude was
straightforward and considerate. He showed thorough understanding
for Austria’s grievances and reasonable claims. He had no intention
of jeopardizing peace by screening Servia or rescuing her from the
consequences of her misbehaviour. King Peter’s Cabinet accordingly
received sound advice from the Tsar’s Government. And what was
more to the point, they adopted it.
During the second day of the time-limit in Vienna and Budapest it
was feared that Servia would give in. M. Jovanovitch, the Servian
Minister, hinted as much, and when one reads Servia’s reply one
cannot fairly reproach him with overstating the gist of it. For it was
acceptance of all those demands which were compatible with
independence. But then independence was precisely what Austria
was minded to take away. And the reserves and provisoes made by
the Servian Note for the purpose of safeguarding it determined the
departure of Baron von Giesl from Belgrade. Characteristic of the
fixed resolve of the Teutonic States to force a quarrel upon Servia at
all costs and irrespective of her reply to the Austrian Note is the
circumstance, vouched for by the Russian press, that within forty
minutes of the delivery of that reply, which was a lengthy document,
the Austrian Minister in Belgrade had read and rejected it, had
removed his luggage and that of his staff from the Legation to the
railway station, and was seated in the train that was to convey him
out of Servia. Forty minutes!
It is not easy for Western minds, accustomed to truth, honour,
and self-respect, to realize how all the usages of international
intercourse were thus set at naught during this first stage of the
European conflict. Words and forms were employed to mislead.
Servia’s answer was wanted only as providing a plausible pretext for
the resort to force, which had been decided on from the first. And I
was informed—although I must in fairness add that I had no tangible
evidence for the assertion, nothing but a strong presumption—that
even if M. Pasitch, violating the Constitution of his country, had
undertaken to carry out all Austria’s behests unreservedly, and if no
internal troubles had resulted from this subservience, the Austrian
troops massed on the Servian frontiers would not have been baulked
of their prey. Another demand was held in reserve which Servia
could not and would not comply with, and her refusal would have
afforded the wished-for ground for invasion.
In any and every case, Servia was to have been entered by
Austrian troops. That seems to have been a settled and irrevocable
resolve. And all the diplomatic notes, conversations, and reports,
which Sir Edward Grey, M. Viviani, and M. Sazonoff treated as
excusable manifestations of fiercely burning anger, were but
cunningly devised expedients to sting the Belgrade Cabinet into
some word or act that might serve to justify this set plan. The plan
was not at first suspected by the Entente Powers, nor was it fully
understood for some time even after its existence had been
discovered. It was, as we saw, twofold. First, the “punishment” of the
army by the forces of the Dual Monarchy, and of the nation by the
levy of a crushing war indemnity, and of the economic energies of
the country by the imposition of a commercial treaty which was to lay
Servia permanently at the mercy of her powerful navy. And, second,
the partition of the newly annexed territories among Servia’s
neighbours and the establishment of a Balkan League under the
ægis of the Habsburgs. The machinery for bringing about this latter
object was in full movement at the very time that the British, French,
and Russian Governments were basing their moderation and self-
containment on Austria’s voluntary undertaking not to annex any
portion of Servian territory. Here, again, was a case of juggling with
phrases which the Chancelleries of the Entente Powers were taking
at their face value. Pressure was even then being put upon Turkey,
Bulgaria, and Greece to assist in this underhand scheme, and
reliance was being placed in the Hohenzollern King Carol, who
would, it was assumed, make full use of his authority to hinder
Roumania from taking sides against Austria-Hungary. The Treaty of
Bucharest was to be proclaimed a scrap of waste paper.
Had the Governments of the Entente realized the impossibilities
that beset them when zealously endeavouring to hit upon a formula
which would have satisfied Vienna and insured the quiescence of St.
Petersburg, they would unquestionably have bent their efforts in
quite other directions. But this vital aspect of the matter lay hidden
from their vision. They were further imposed upon by Germany’s
evident anxiety that the war area should be restricted to Servian
territory. Indeed, one of the most caustic ironies of the crisis lay in
the eager co-operation of the Entente Powers with Germany for what
they all termed the peace of Europe, but which the Teutonic States
knew to be the smooth execution of their own sinister designs. The
combined moral pressure of all Europe was accordingly brought to
bear upon Russia to oblige or constrain her to passivity for the sake
of the general peace.
And it must be confessed that the Tsar’s Ministers came up to
the highest expectations conceived of them. Defence, not offence,
was their watchword. They would follow the lead of their future
adversaries and content themselves with parrying their thrusts. M.
Sazonoff’s first step, although he may have foreseen the coming
hurricane, was to ask for an extension of the time-limit. “If you want
to localize the quarrel,” he argued, “you must adopt suitable
measures. You say that our co-operation is essential. Well, we are
willing to accord it. Let us get to work at once. Some of your
demands involve a change in the Servian Constitution. No Minister
and no Cabinet can accomplish this without a law passed by the
Legislature. And this cannot be done in a few hours. But give Servia
a few days to turn your demands over in her mind, and give us time
to advise and to urge her to prudence and compromise.” Now if, as
France and Great Britain assumed, Austria wanted only to punish
Servia for her past attitude and obtain guarantees of future good
behaviour, she would have complied with this common-sense
request. But as that was not her entire plan, she refused,
congruously with her preliminary arrangement with the German
Kaiser, and relying on the axiom that Russia would not fight.
This negative answer disclosed the fact that the two allies’ plans
went further than had been assumed. Thereupon the Tsar’s
Government issued orders countermanding the manœuvres,
promoting officers, summarily terminating the camp gatherings,
prohibiting aviation over the frontiers, and proclaiming the two
capitals in a state of “extraordinary protection.” Notwithstanding, or
by reason of this, Berlin put in a plea that she should not be
confounded with Vienna. “It was not we who sent the ultimatum.
Neither did we know the text of it. That was Austria’s handiwork, and,
what is more to the point, she has acted at her own risk and peril.
Please bear that in mind.” “We certainly will. But are we to take it
that, having acted at her own risk and peril, Austria is proceeding
alone?” “Ah, well, she is our ally, you know, and we are bound to
second her demands and stand by her to the end.” “Well, will you
exercise an ally’s right and counsel her to postpone military
operations until Europe has had time to secure for her ample
satisfaction.” “No, we do not see our way to comply with this
request.” That was Germany’s mode of speech and action.
Thereupon Russia introduced a modification of the law of military
conscription in so far as it deals with officers of the reserve and the
militia. The practical result of this innovation was to facilitate
mobilization should that measure be subsequently resorted to.
Soon after the expiry of the time-limit Austria declared war on the
realm of King Peter. M. Sazonoff, having from the start defined his
country’s position in the words, “Russia cannot adopt an attitude of
unconcern in a struggle between Austria-Hungary and Servia,”
continued to give striking proofs of the Tsar’s will to save Europe
from a general war. Sir Edward Grey had offered to get satisfaction
for the Dual Monarchy through the Powers, and he would have
accomplished his purpose without a doubt. But Austria was bent on
getting something more than satisfaction for herself and for Germany
in spite of Russia, whom she stigmatized as the mischief-maker.
Hence all the heavy guns of European diplomacy were levelled
against the Tsardom, while the St. Petersburg Foreign Office went
beyond the Hercules’ pillars of conciliation. Not only had Russia
induced Servia to consent to terms which were onerous and
humiliating, but the Russian Ambassador in Vienna said it was
probable that his Government would, if properly approached, go still
18
further. Our own Ambassador in that capital assured his chief that
he had gathered that Russia “would go a long way to meet Austrian
19
demands on Servia.” M. Sazonoff did not stop even here. He was
careful to explain that mobilization should be envisaged as what it
really was, namely, a mere intimation that Russia must be consulted
20
regarding the fate of Servia, not as a threat of war.
The German Kaiser, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the
Kingdom of Prussia, had laid down the principle that “in this world
nothing must be settled without the intervention of Germany and of
the German Emperor,” yet the fate of a Slav State, which Russia
had, so to say, created and watched over and protected, was about
to be decided without her consent, nay, without her knowledge.
Russia was to be ostentatiously ignored and the Balkan States to be
impressed by the fact that she was worse than powerless as a
friend. That the Tsar’s Government, however ready for compromise,
would not brook this deadly affront was manifest to all excepting
those who had settled it to their own satisfaction that she was too
helpless to move. And the two Teutonic allies were of this opinion.
That is why their answers to Russia’s demands for a conference, or
at any rate for an exchange of views, were not only negative in
substance, but wantonly insolent in form. All that M. Sazonoff
demanded was an assurance that Servia would not be utterly
crushed. It was refused. He would, he said, understand that Austria-
Hungary is compelled to exact from Servia measures which will
secure her Slav provinces from the continuance of hostile
21
propaganda from Servian territory. And that was what every
statesman in Europe was also saying. If Austria’s demands had
been, as they seemed, inspired by a legitimate desire to safeguard
herself from a real Servian danger, the undertakings of Servia and
Russia ought to have afforded her a broad enough basis for a pacific
settlement. But all these colloquies, assurances, and claims were but
the screen behind which a huge anti-European conspiracy was being
hatched. And as yet the truth had not dawned on the statesmen of
the Entente, who, still hypnotized by the crime of Sarajevo, were
honestly working to obtain amends and guarantees for Austria-
Hungary and ward off the growing peril of a general war.
Germany, ever alert and watchful, was the first to note that
Russia’s attitude differed from what it should be according to
programme. She did not appear disposed to take with resignation
the humiliation devised for her. She declared that she would not be
indifferent to a conflict between Austria and Servia. She demanded a
hearing in the councils of those who arrogated to themselves the
right of life and death over her Slav protégé. As soon as this
discrepancy between the actual and the expected became evident,
the Berlin Government, which had made provision for this
eventuality, commenced elaborate preparations against Russia,
particularly in the Finnish Gulf. And as is the wont of Prussia, these
preparations were secret. But the Russian authorities got wind of
them, and apprized our Ambassador in St. Petersburg of what was
22
taking place.
Russia’s spirited determination, coupled with her dignified
conciliatory disposition, caused painful heartburnings in Vienna. It
constituted the first hitch in the official programme. What was the
good of having agents in St. Petersburg, who supplied exact copies
of State papers and faithful narratives of private conversations, if the
legitimate deductions from these data were upset at the very outset?
To me, who witnessed the gradual breaking in of this painful light
on the systematic mind of Teutonic diplomacy, there was something
intensely ludicrous in the tragic spirit in which it was received. Could
nothing, it was asked, be done to keep Russia in bounds? Was
France fully alive to the issues which Russia’s intervention would
raise? Where was the love of peace so lately and so loudly
professed by the Tsar and M. Poincaré?
I had not the faintest doubt as to how Russia would behave
under the provocation to which she was being subjected by the
Teutonic States. There are some considerations of an altruistic
nature which nations, like individuals, set above their own vital
interests—considerations that engage all that is deepest and noblest
in their feelings, that fire their imagination and call forth all the
energies of their will. And the fate of the little Servian nation was one
of these causes. To the Russian the Slav cause is much more than a
political interest: it is a religious cult. But for such altruistic heroisms
the Prussianized German has no sense. To him it is the fourth
emotional dimension. On July 30th I despatched the following
telegram to the Daily Telegraph, which I afterwards discovered was
not transmitted:
It would be a delusion to suppose that Russia will keep the

peace while Servia is undergoing punishment that would reduce
her to the rank of a semi-vassal State, and it would be a piece of
still greater self-deception to imagine that Germany will not raise
her army to its war-footing once the mobilization order has been
issued in St. Petersburg, or will not use that army to the full
when it is in the field. And as Austria-Hungary is resolved to
have her way with Servia, and to refuse to render account of her
action to any other Power, one is forced to the conclusion that
the only possible solution to the present crisis is the much-
dreaded European war. It is for that tremendous struggle that the
Great Powers, and possibly one or other of the smaller ones,
must now make ready.
On July 30th the meek, insignificant figure of the German

Ambassador, Count Pourtalès, his head sheepishly bent down on his
left shoulder, passed through the spacious apartments of the
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After a brief talk with M. Sazonoff
he became aware that the Rubicon was about to be passed,
whereupon, as our Ambassador to the Tsar puts it, “he completely
broke down. He appealed to M. Sazonoff to make some suggestion
which he would telegraph to the German Government as a last
hope.” For he, too, was aware that Russia’s entrance into the arena
was an item which the Berlin wire-pullers had no wish to add to their
compact little programme. To this appeal the Tsar’s Minister gave a
ready and conciliatory reply: “If Austria,” he said, “recognizing that
her conflict with Servia has assumed the character of a question of
European interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her
ultimatum those points which run counter to the principle of Servia’s
sovereignty, Russia engages to stop all military preparations.”
That proposal was fair and moderate from every point of view
but one. And that one was the Austro-German plot, which it was
calculated to thwart.

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The Irish Presbyterian Mind:

Conservative Theology, Evangelical

The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative

Print publication date: 2018

(p.i) The Irish Presbyterian Mind (p.ii)

(p.iii) The Irish Presbyterian Mind

(p.iv) Copyright Page

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,

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© Andrew R. Holmes 2018

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First Edition published in 2018

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The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative

Print publication date: 2018

To Jillian and Peter (p.vi)

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The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative

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I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the staff and librarians of the

encouragement and support. None of these individuals is responsible for any

Belfast, June 2018 (p.viii)

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Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: Presbyterian, evangelical, theological, fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism

established Churches of England and Ireland and the ‘Romanization’ of

Though the overall character of the Presbyterian mind remained conservative,

Generally speaking, religiously conservative Irish Presbyterians have not

Historiography—The Return of Religion and the Interpretation of Irish

The continued significance of religion in the twenty-first century has attracted

Cambridge School of political thought associated with Quentin Skinner and J. G.

It is often claimed that modern biblical criticism, historical method, evolutionary

methodologies and sanctioned means of disseminating their research. They

In response, many protestant theologians sought to adapt orthodoxy to modern

Though the influence of nineteenth-century liberalism in the following century

Lofton’s comments remind us that theological liberalism remained a

The emphasis on complexity also challenges a two-party paradigm of theological

the late nineteenth century. These produced an ‘extraordinary quickening’ of

for civil society.25 Specifically in terms of Presbyterianism, the vitality and

Conservative protestant theology is often reduced to fundamentalism, and this

These reinterpretations mean that scholars of British Protestantism are more

The same interpretation has been offered on theological developments within

theology by showing how modern approaches could be reconciled with

Most Irish historians are seemingly only interested in Presbyterians because

Church of Ireland and British rule.41 The transformation of Presbyterians in the

Scholars have found it easier to understand theologically liberal Presbyterians

Numbers Ministers Congregations

Presbyterian Church in Ireland 470,734 626 555

Reformed Presbyterians 8,375 36 48

United Presbyterians 2,006 11 12

Original Seceders 1,442 9 12

Source: Thomas Croskery, Irish Presbyterianism: Its History,

Evangelicalism was undoubtedly a dominant religious and cultural force in