Alexander Cameron Blaikie (1804-1885) was the author of a catechism on church government and a catechism on praise in worship. The latter work was originally published in 1849. It is now available to read at Log College Press here.
The Associate Church minister James Patterson Miller, as he was preparing to leave New York on a missionary assignment to Oregon, where he would die tragically in an explosion, once wrote, "I make it a text-book in my Bible classes. As I intend to leave New York, in October 1850, for Oregon, please send me 200 copies for distribution in that territory."
This catechism on praise in worship was republished by the James Begg Society in 2003. It has stood the test of time because it is a concise summary of the principles of historic Presbyterian worship. Take time to download it for further study, and consider what this 19th century Presbyterian minister had to say about the proper principles for Biblical praise in worship.
Old School-New School Explained
Previously, we have highlighted several books which endeavor to explain and differentiate the 1837-1838 Old / New School divide within mainline American Presbyterianism:
- Samuel Baird, A History of the New School, and of the Questions Involved in the Disruption of the Presbyterian Church in 1838;
- Alexander Blaikie, The Schools;
- James Wood, Old and New Theology: Or an Exhibition of Those Differences with Regard to Scripture Doctrines, Which Have Recently Agitated and Now Divided the Presbyterian Church;
And now we have another resource to offer for study on this subject: Lewis Cheeseman (1803-1861), Differences Between Old and New School Presbyterians (1848).
Take time to look over these works and familiarize yourself with the issues and persons involved. The year 1837 was momentous in American Presbyterian church history (as was 1936, almost a century later). The authors above lived through this tumultuous time and, without claiming to be impartial, have left a record of the distinctions between these two schools which characterized the divide in American Presbyterianism. Add these volumes to your reading list, and learn what happened 180 years ago to split the old and new schools of American Presbyterianism.
Here's what an Associate Reformed Presbyterian thought of the New and Old Schools in 1860...
If you've ever seen a map of American Presbyterianism from the 1700s till today, you understand why it's often called "Split P soup," and you also perhaps scratch your head in confusion as to what kept all these different groups from uniting as one large Presbyterian body en masse. Alexander Blaikie (1804-1885) was an Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister who was familiar with the differences between the various denominations of Presbyterians, and his 60-page pamphlet entitled "The Schools" (written in 1860) is helpful in sorting out who believed what in those days. Check it out - and if anyone knows where we can find a picture of Blaikie, let us know!