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Chapter twenty-nine tells of the fight the New School mounted to try and take back the American Presbyterian Church through legal means. Meeting in Auburn, New York, the New School held what became the “Auburn Convention,” where they determined they would use all legal means to fight to retain their leadership role in the Presbyterian Church. By this time, nearly a half of all Presbyterians in the United States had aligned themselves with the New School. Such numbers shocked the Old School. Although the New School was awarded the trusteeship of the Church in a lower court, ultimately a higher Pennsylvania court awarded the Old School the right to be the guiding force of the American Presbyterian Church.

Chapter twenty-eight studies the events which led to the Presbyterian schism of 1837. Many issues led to the schism, but most importantly the Old and New Schools differed on matters of theology. The Old School also had significant problems with the 1801 “Plan of Union” which had joined the efforts of Presbyterians and Congregationalists together in evangelizing the American West. Princeton Seminary attempted to stay neutral in many of these debates, but when the Old School decided to push for separation, Princeton readily joined it. Hodge agreed with the need for separation, but did not like everything the Old School had done to accomplish it.

Chapter fifty-three examines Hodge’s opposition to the reunion of the Old and New Schools of Presbyterianism just a few years later. Henry Boyton Smith of Union Seminary led the New School movement for reunion. Hodge wished such a reunion to come, but only when it was based on theological agreements that he did not believe yet existed. He feared that a premature reunion would simply set the stage for a re-enactment of the Schism of 1837.

The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these theologians condemned the revolutions in France and were suspicious of the “infidel” Thomas Jefferson and his friend James Madison. American Calvinists were, however, not unified; their disputes grew from the different approaches they took to the problems of religious organization and national civilization posed by the new American nation.

Chapter twenty-six centers on the growing conflict between Old and New School Presbyterians. These differences centered on theology, revivalism and the denomination’s relationship to voluntary societies. Charles Finney played an important role in the revivalism debates, and Hodge sought to circumscribe the power voluntary societies played in relationship to Presbyterian autonomy.

Chapter thirty addresses Hodge in his role as his denomination’s historian. In 1839, he decides to write a definitive history of American Presbyterianism. He completes two volumes, which show that he largely uses history to explain the present. He makes many connections between the New Side colonial Presbyterians and the New School Presbyterians of his own day. Archibald Alexander disagreed with his treatment of the Old Side, saying he was too rough on its activities and its ultimate benefits to American Christianity. Hodge refused to bring his history up to the present day, saying that would be better left for someone else.

Chapter twenty-seven examines Hodge’s first article on the issue of slavery. Hodge remained largely consistent on his views of slavery throughout his life, and they are most clearly sent down in his 1836 Repertory article entitled “Slavery.” Hodge believed that if the Bible nowhere condemned slavery, then neither could the Presbyterian Church. For a time, he and others at Princeton were ardent supports of the American Colonization Society. Their more proslavery stances put them in conflict with the more progressive antislavery views of the New School.

Chapter forty-seven explores three of the biblical commentaries Hodge wrote during the 1850s: Ephesians, First Corinthians, and Second Corinthians. Partly in response to the massive popularity of Albert Barnes’s New Testament commentary series, Hodge approached Joseph Addison Alexander with the idea of producing their own New Testament commentary set that would provide Americans with a conservative Calvinist point of view. Together, they completed six commentaries for the set before Addison prematurely died in 1860. Hodge did not carry their work on after his death. He also opposed a move by Robert Breckinridge in 1858 to have the General Assembly commission an official commentary to be used by Old School Presbyterians.

In Chapter 5, we note the varied reception among nineteenth-century Methodists of contemporary revisionist Christologies in relation to classical and creedal approaches. Distinctly Wesleyan understandings of salvation are then described, and the intra-Methodist disagreements and squabbles over the doctrine of sanctification are catalogued. The chapter concludes with a sketch of Wesleyan ecclesiology—including the church’s ethical witness in concrete acts of mercy and social reform—and eschatology.

Princeton, with its Old School Presbyterian heritage, had stronger sectarian theological ties than other leading schools. President James McCosh, an accomplished Scottish philosopher, helped modernize the college while still keeping a strong religious presence. In famous debates with Charles Eliot in the 1880s, he argued that freedom always works within limits. His successor, Francis Patton, was rigorously conservative in his Presbyterian orthodoxy but ran Princeton very much as a gentlemen’s club. Woodrow Wilson as president helped professionalize the university but remained loyal to broad Christian ideals. As at other schools of the era, the most vigorous religious expressions were in student voluntary associations.