In those days, Presbyterians were divided by the Old School–New School Controversy. The New School was ardently evangelistic and revivalist, and abandoned strict Calvinism for a theology of free will; the Old School was more doctrinally rigid and fearful of too much emotion. Second Church experienced an Old School/New School division, suffered financial hardship in covering the cost of its new building, and became involved in a scandal involving a member of President Jackson's cabinet. By the 1850s, it was barely functioning.