The final chapter begins with post-war reconstruction and how new professorial appointments signalled a move from dogma and theological proficiency to experience and practical Christianity. The second section examines a powerful outbreak of religious revival in the early 1920s associated with William Patterson Nicholson. Though aspects of popular revivalism were criticized, the religious awakening was encouraged by leaders within the Presbyterian Church and helped to draw attention to the role and rhetoric of religious experience. The final two sections discuss the course and aftermath of the heresy trial of James Ernest Davey in 1927. They examine the increasingly fractious debate over revising the formula of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the formation of the Bible Standards League. The exoneration of Davey seemed to confirm the fears of conservatives, but this obscures the essential conservatism of the denomination in terms of evangelical principles and denominational loyalty.
