Reoved. That we remember with honest gratitude the Dble and immense work accomplished by the Young Men's Christian Association of our land, and the sanitary and spiritual fields opened up by the providence of God for our willing hearts and hands, and pledge that we will continne to pray for our army and navy and to meet their wants in the future with greater fidelity, if possible. THE AMERICAN BOARD OF FOREIGN October, 1864-At the recent meeting of the Bard in Worcester, Massachusetts, Rev. Albert Barnes was, by unanimous vote, granted leave to present a series of important resolutions without the re'erence of the same to a special e mmi tee. The preamble and resolutions are as following: Whereas this Board is called upon to conduct its operations at an important crisis of our country, the result of which must materially affect the missionary cause in time to come; and Whereas this Board has on former occasions expressed its sense of the system of slavery in our country, which lies at the foundation of the present effort to overcome our civil institutions and to establish a separate government in our land; and Whereas the missionaries of this Board have with entire unanimity expressed their interest in the cause of the country in its endeavors to maintain the Government, and have freely given their sons to the defence of the nation in its present crisis; therefore V. The Board shall have power to fill any vacancies occurring therein during the year, and shall be styled, "The Board of Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, for the Freedmen of our Southern States." VI. To this Board shall be intrusted, with such directions and instructions as my from time to time be given by the Assembly, the superintendence of the Freedmen Missionary operations of the Church. VII. The Board shall make to the Assembly an annual report of its proceedings, its condition, and its needs, and shall submit for approval such plans and measures as may be deemed necessary or useful. VIII. To the board shall belong the duty, though not aries and Agents, and of designating fields of labor: to the exclusive right, of nominating and appointing Missionthem shall belong the duty of receiving the reports of the Corresponding Secretary; of giving him needful directions intrusted to him; of preparing for the Assembly estimates in reference to all matters of business and correspondence of all appropriations and expenditures of money; and of taking the particular direction and oversight of the Freedmen's missionary work, subject to the revision and control of the Assembly. IX. All property, houses, lands, tenements, and permanent funds Lelonging to the Bord, shall be taken in the name of the Trustees of the Assembly, and held in trust by them for the use and benefit of "The Board of Missions of the United Presbyte in Church of North America for the Freedmen of the South." X. The Board shall have power to enact its own By-Laws. XI. This Constitution shall not be changed, unless by a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly present at any of its sessions, of which notice shall be given at least one day previously. XII. The Board shall submit an abstract of its condition, proceedings, wants, and plans, to the several Synods of the Church at their annual meetings. As some Presbyteries have already taken action upon this subject, and have agencies on the field, your committee recommend the following resolutions: Resolved, 1st. That this Board receives with affectionate sympathy these expressions of the interest thus manifested by those in its service, and the sacrifices thus made. Resolved, 24. That in connection with the purpose to spread the Gospel through the world, the results of the contest on the cause of missions, and in view of diffusing a religion that will be everywhere adapted to sustain just Resolved, 1. That the doings of the Presbyteries of civil government and the principles of liberty, and that Wheeling, Muskingum, Chartiers, and 1st Presbytery of shall tend to deliver the world from the oppression of sla-Ohio, be recognized and approved, and after the organizavery, as well as in the relation of its members to the Government of this land, and their duty to sustain that Government, this Board expresses its hearty sympathy in the eforts to suppress the rebellion, and gratefully acknowledges the divine interposition in the successes which have attended the arms of the nation, as an indication that we shill again be one people, united under one glorious Constitution, united in our efforts to spread the Gospel around the world. The resolutions were seconded by Rev. Dr. Brainerd, of Philadelphia, and unanimously adopted, the audience rising en masse and spontaneously singing My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, &c. UNITED PRESBYTERIAN. GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED PRESBYTE- tion of this Board it shall be the duty of these agencies to report their doings and resources to said Board. Resolved, 2. That such Presbyteries as may prefer it are hereby authorized to select their own mission field, procure their own laborers, and conduct their missions, in their own way, provided that they report to the Board the location of their respective fields, the laborers employed and the amount of funds collected and disbursed. Your committee would recommend the following persons as members of the Board of Missions to the Freedmen of the South: Revs. J. B. Clark, Charles A. Dickey, J. W. Baine, J. G. Birnes. W. J. Reid. G. C. Vincent, and Messrs. John Dean, James Robb and James Mitchell, with power to fill vacancies. GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED PRESBY- May 25-The body met in Philadelphia. May 27-The body met in Xenia, Ohio. tee on the "freedmen of our Southern States" That in the interests of the United Presbyterian Church a Board be created for this special purpose, and that the following Constitution be adopted with a view to secure the objects contemplated: CON-TITUTION OF THE BOARD OF MISSIONS FOR THE FREEDMEN I. There shall be a Board of Missions for the Freedmen, to be appointed by and amenable to the Assembly. II. It shall consist of nine members, who shall hold their office three years, and five of whom shall constitute a quoruin. Of those first chosen three shall go out of office annually in the order of their names; and thereafter three shall annually be elected by the Assembly. III. The Board shall be located in the City of Allegheny. IV. The Board shall meet quarterly, and as much oftener as necessary; and shall hold its first meeting on the 4th of July, 1863, at ten o'clock, A. M, in the Second Church. The Committee on Bills and Overtures beg leave to report on three papers submitted to them by the Assembly; the first from G. D. Henderson and S. Collins; the 2d from S. Wilson and A. M. Elliott; and the 3d from S. Livingston and W. M. McElwee, as follows: I. The paper of G. D. Henderson and S. Collins asks for the appointment of a committee to prepare an address to President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton, and Lieut. General Grant, embodying the following items: 1st. An assurance of the deep sympathy and earnest cooperation of this Assembly and of the people whom we represent, with the Government in its present trials and worthy efforts to maintain the principles on which it is based. 24. The great satisfaction we have enjoyed in observing their recogition of the facts" that God alone can organize victory," "that we need the Divine favor," and that we are warranted to expect this favor only in the way of a dutiful regard to His will as Governor among the nations. 3d. An assurance that we gladly recognize this favor in the successes which have attended the movements of our armies on the Potomac and in Georgia, and that it is only in the continuance of this favor that we can hope for final | CHARLESTON (S. C.) PRESBYTERY, (OLD SCHOOL), success. That an address of the nature contemplated in the paper of these brethren should go forth from this Assembly, it appears to your Committee, is highly proper. We therefore recommend for adoption the following resolution, viz: Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to prepare, at their earliest convenience, an address such as the paper of these brethren contemplates, and forward it to President Lincoln and his Cabinet. II. The paper of S. Wilson and A. M. Elliott asks that a Committee be appointed to report whether any, and if so, what advice should be tendered by this Assembly to our National Executive, touching the morality of retaliation as a means of preventing the continuance of the cruelty and barbarity which has been practiced upon our soldiers by our rebel enemies. As this paper was presented under the impression that President Lincoln was hesitating on the question of retaliation, your Committee think Lo action is needed in the premises by this Assembly, as we have been informed that the President has already decided the course to be pursued by him, and that retaliation is being already practised to some extent by the Union army. We therefore recommend that this paper be dismissed. 1861. the following preamble and resolutions were July 25-The body met in Columbia, when unanimously adopted: Whereas, The relations of the State of South Carolina, of ten other adjacent States, and of the people thereof. with the other States and people previously composing the United States of America, have been dissolved, and the former united in the separate and independent Govern ment of the Confederate States of America, thereby inaking a separate and independent organization of the Church within the said Confederate States desirable and necessary, in order to the more faithful and successful fulfilment of its duty to its Divine Lord and Master; and whereas, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, by the adoption of a paper known as Dr. Spring's Resolutions, ignoring the establish ment of the Government of the Confederate States of America, and disregarding our rights, privileges, and duties as citizens thereof, enjoined our allegiance to, and support of, a Government foreign and hostile to our own, and required us not only to yield obedience to a political power which we, in common with our fellow-citizens of all classes and all churches, have disowned and rejected, but also to act as traitors and rebels against the rightful and legal authorities of the land in which we live; and whereas these resolutions of the General Assembly require us to continue united to a people who have violated the Consti tution under which we were originally confederated, and broken the covenant entered into by their fathers and ours; and whereas, the said action of the General Assembly in the United States of America, demands of us and all members of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States, the approval and support of the wicked and cruel war now waged by the other States of the former United States of America against the States and people of the Confederate States, against our fellow-citizens, against our friends and neighbors, against our own households and ourselves; and whereas, we do most heartily, with the full Insurrec-approval of our consciences before our Lord God, unanimously approve the action of the States and people of the Confederate States of America; therefore, III. The paper of S. Livingston and W. M. McElwee asks for the adoption of the following resolution: That this Assembly hails the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln as a measure of high military importance and necessity, and statesmanlike in striking at slavery, the root, cause, and strength of the rebellion, and that we recognize in it the voice of God speaking as he did to his ancient people Israel, saying by it to us," Break every yoke and let the oppressed go free." The Committee present this resolution in another form, and recommend that in this amended form it be adopted, viz: Resolved, That without expressing any judgment on the military importance and necessity, or the statesmanlike character of the Proclamation, we hail it as obedience to the voice of God, calling us, as he did his ancient people, Let the oppressed go iree and break every yoke. Action of Churches in the tionary States. PRESBYTERIAN. PRESBYTERIAN (OLD SCHOOL) SYNOD OF SOUTH December 3-Report of committee mously adopted, closing thus: Be it resolved by the Charleston Presbytery, 1. That the ecclesiastical relations heretofore subsisting between this Presbytery and the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America are dissolved; that we do not recognize the right or authority of the General Assem bly to adopt the resolutions above referred to: and that we unani-disown and repudiate those resolutions, both in their letter and their spirit, as having no authority over us, and as entitled to no respect or consideration from us. The Synod has no hesitation, therefore, in expressing the belief that the people of South Carolina are now solemnly called on to inuitate their Revolutionary forefathers, andstand up for their rights. We have an humble and abiding confidence, that that God, whose truth we represent in this conflict, will be with us, and exhorting our churches and people to put their trust in God, and go forward in the golemn path of duty which his Providence opens before them, we, ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina Synod assembled, would give them our benediction, and the assurance that we shall fervently and unceasingly implore for them the care and protection of Almighty God. Several of the Presbyteries of the Old School Presbyterian Church in the Secoded States beld their regular fall meetings in 1861, and, without exception, passed acts of separation from the General Assembly of the church, and appointed delegates to attend at Augusta, Georgia, on t e 4th of December, for the pur pose of forming a General Assembly of the Southern Confederacy portion of the denomination which was one. 1861, July 24-The Presbytery of South Alabama met at Selma, and declared severed its ecclesiastical connection with the General Assembly of the United States, and recommended a meeting of a Confederate States Assembly at Memphis, on the 4th of the next December, suggesting, for a preliminary convention, if such be desired, Atlanta as the place and August 15th the time. 2. That in the judgment of this Presbytery, it is expedi ent and necessary that the Presbyterian Churches in the Confederate States should formally separate themselves from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and establish a separate and independent ecclesiastical organization. 3. That this Presbytery heartily approves of holding a Convention of all the Presbyteries in the Confederate States, for the purpose of considering this whole matter, securing the united and harmonious action of the whole Church, and devising and recommending such measures as may be necessary fully to organize the Church in the Con federate States. 4. That this Presbytery will proceed to appoint two ministers and two ruling elders, with alternates, to attend such Convention, who shall be authorized to advise and act the Confederate States, as in their judgment may se with similar delegates appointed by other Presbyteries in best; the action of said delegates and of the Convention to be submitted to this Presbytery for its action thereon. place, and the 15th of August next as the time, for the 5. That this Presbytery prefers Atlanta, Ga., as the meeting of the proposed Convention, but that our delegates be authorized and instructed to meet at any time or place that may be agreed on by the majority of the Presbyteries appointing similar delegates, previous to the next stated meeting of this Presbytery. GENERAL JOHN DOUGLAS, Stated Clerk. ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE CONFEDERATE STATES, 1861. December 4-The body met in Augusta, Georgia--35 ministers and 38 elders present. Same day-A Committee consisting of James H. Thornwell, D. D., Theodoric Pryor, D. D., C. C. Jones, D. D., R. B. White, D. D., W. D Moore D. D., J. H. Gillespie, J. I. Boozer, R. W. Bailey. D. D., and Frederick K. Nash, Ministers; J. D. Armstrong, Charles Phillips, Joseph A. Brooks, W. P. Finley, Samuel McCorkle, William P. Webb, William L. Black, T. L. Dun-mitted to enter the Church Courts, there must be an end those of perf et homogeneousness, cannot be united in one Church, without the rigid exclusion of all civil and secular questions from its halls. Where the countries differ in their customs and institutions, and view each other with an eye of jealousy and rivalry, if national feelings are perof harmony and peace. The prejudices of the man and the citizen will prove stronger than the charity of the Christian. When they have allowed themselves to denounce each other for their national peculiarities, it will be hard to jom in cordial fellowship as members of the same spiritual family. Much more must this be the case where the na lap, and E. W. Wright, Ruling Elders--was appointed to prepare an Address "setting forth the causes of our separation from the churches in the United States, our attitude in relation to SLAVERY, and a gen ral view of the policy,tions are not simply rivals, but enemies-when they hate which, as a Church, we propose to pursue.' Subsequently the Committee reported the following Address, which was unanimously adopted: each other with a crued haired-when they are engaged in a ferocious and bloody war, and when the worst passions of human nature are stirred to their very depths. An Assembly composed of representatives from two such countries, could have no security for peace except in a steady, uncompromising adherence to the Scriptural principle, that it would know no man after the flesh; that it would abolish the distinctions of Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, and recognize nothing but the new creature in Christ Jesus. The moment it permits itself to know the Confederate or the United States, the moment its members meet as citizens of these countries, our political differences will be transferred to the house of Gol, and the passions of the forum will expel the spirit of holy love and of Christian communion. We cannot condemn a man, in one breath, as unfaithful to the most solemn earthly interests-his country and his race-and commend him in the next as a loyal and faithful servant of his God. If we distrust his patriotism, our confidence is apt to be very measured in his pity. The old adage will hold here as in other things, fulsus in uns, falus in omnibus. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, to all the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the earth, greeting: Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you! DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN: It is probably known to you that the Presbyteries and Synods in the Confederate States, which were formerly in connection with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, have renounced the jurisdiction of that body; and dissolved the ties which bound them ecclesiastically with their brethren of the North. This act of separation left them without any formal union among themselves. But as they were one in faith and order, and still adhered to their old stan iards, measures were promptly a lopted for giving expression to their unity, by the organization of a Supreme Curt, upon the model of the one whose authority they had just relinquished. Commissioners, duly appointed, from all the Presbyteries of these Confederate States, met accordingly, in the city of August, on the fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and then and there proceeded to constitute the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Coufederate States of America. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States-that is to say, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Form of Government, the Book of Discip-society of rights. The Church is a supernatural institute, line, and the Directory for Worship-were unanimously and solely declared to be the Constitution of the Church in the Confederate States, with no other change than the substitution of "Confederate" for "United wherever the country is mentioned in the standards. The Church, therefre, in these seceded States, presents now the spectacle of a separate, and independent, and complete organization, under the style and title of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. In thus taking its place among sister churches of this and other countries, it seems proper that it should set forth the causes which have impelled it to separate from the Church of the North, and to indicate a general view of the course which it feels it incumbent upon it to pursue in the new circumstances in which it is placed. We should be sorry to be regarded by our brethren in any part of the world as guilty of schism. We are not conscions of any purpose to rend the body of Christ. On the contrary, our aim has been to promote the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. If we know our own hearts, and can form any just estimate of the motives which have governed us, we have been prompted by a sincere desire to promote the glory of God, and the efficiency, energy, har-in the idea of duty. But even duty is viewed by ench in mony, and zeal of his visible kingdom in the earth. We have separated from our brethren of the North as Abraham separated from Lot-because we are persuaded that the interests of true religion will be more electually subserved by two independent Churches, under the circumstances in which the two countries are placed, than by one united body: The only conceivable condition, therefore, upon which the Church of the North and the South could remain together as one body, with any prospect of success, is the rigorous exclusion of the questions and passions of the forum from its halls of debate. This is what always ought to be done. The provinces of Church and State are perfectly distinct, and the one has no right to usurp the jurisdiction of the other. The State is a natural institute, founded in the constitution of man as moral and social, and designed to realize the idea of justice. It is the founded in the facts of redemption, and is designed to realize the idea of grace. It is the society of the redeemed. The State aims at social order, the Church at spiritual holiness. The State looks to the visible and outward, the Church is concerned for the invisible and inward. The badge of the State's authority is the sword, by which it becomes a terror to evil doers, and a praise to them that do well. The badge of the Church's authority is the keys, by which it opens and shuts the Kingdom of Heaven, according as men are believing or impenitent. The power of the Church is exclusively spiritual, that of the State includes the exercise of force. The Constitution of the Church is a Divine revelation-the Constitution of the State must be determined by human reason and the course of Providential events. The Church has no right to coustruct or modify a government for the State, and the State has no right to frame a creed or polity for the Church. They are as planets moving in different orbits, and unless each is confined to its own truck, the consequences may be as disastrous in the moral world as the collision of different spheres in the world of matter. It is true that there is a point at which their respective jurisdictions seem to meet very different lights. The Church enjoins it as obedience to God, and the State enforces it as the safeguard of order. But there can be no collision, unless one or the other blunders as to the things that are materially right. When the State makes wicked laws, contradicting the eternal principles of recti ude, the Church is at liberty to testify against them, and humbly to petition that they may be 1. In the first place, the course of the last Assembly, at repealed. In like manner, if the Church becomes seditious Philadelphia, conclusively shows that if we should remain and a distu ber of the peace, the State has a right to abate together, the political questions which divide usas citizens, the nuisance. In ordinary cases, however, there is not will be obtruded on our Church Courts, and discussed by likely to be a collision. Among a Christian people, there Christian ministers and elders with all the acrimony, bit- is little difference of opinion as to the radical distinctions terns, and rancor, with which such questions are usually of right and wrong. The only serious danger is where discussed by men of the world. Our Assem ly would pre- moral duty is conditioned upon a political question. UnBent a mouraful spectacle of strife and debate. Commis-der the pretext of inculcating duty, the Church may usurp Bioners from the Northern would meet with Commissioners the power to determine the question which conditions it, from the Southern Confederacy, to wranzle over the ques- and that is precisely what she is debarred from doing. tions which have split them into two confederacies, and in- The condition must be given. She must accept it from the volved them in fulions and bloody war. They would de- State, and then her own course is clear. If Cæsar is your nounce each other, on the one hand, as tyrants and oppres-master, then pay tribute to him; but whether the "if" Bors, and on the other, as traitors and rebels. The Spirit of holds, whether Cæsar is your master or not, whether he God would take his departure from these scenes of con- ever had any just authority, whether he now retins it, or fusion, and leave the Church lifeless and powerless, an easy has forfeited it, these are points which the Church has no prey to the sectional divisions and angry passions of its commission to adjudicate. members. Two nations, under any circumstances, except Had these principles been steadily maintained by the terians of Scotland, and the Presbyterians of this country constitute a Church, in like manner, distinct from all other Churches on the globe. That the division into national Churches, that is, Churches bounded by national lines, is, in the present condition of human nature, a bonelit, seems to us too obvious for proof. It realizes to the Church Catho lic all the advantages of a division of labor. It makes a Church organization homogeneous and compact-it stimu lates holy rivalry and zeal-it removes all grounds of suspicion and jealousy on the part of the State. What is lost in expansion is gained in energy. The Church Catholic, as thus divided, and yet spiritually one, divided, bat not rent, is a beautiful illustration of the great philosophi cal principle which pervades all nature-the co-existin of the one with the many. Assembly at Philadelphia, it is possible that the ecclesiastical separation of the North and the South might have been deferred for years to come. Our Presbyteries, many of them, clung with tenderness to the recollections of the past. Sacred memories gathered around that venerable Church which had broasted many a storm and trained our fathers for glory. It had always been distinguished for its conservative influence, and many fondly hoped that, even in the present emergency, it would raise its placid and serene head above the tumults of popular passion, and bid defiance to the angry billows which rolled at its feet. We expected it to bow in reverence only at the name of Jesus. Many dreamed that it would utterly refuse to know either Confederates or Federalists, and utterly refuse to give any authoritative degree without a "Thus saith the Lord." It was ardently desired that the sublime spectacle might be presented of one Church upon earth combining in cordial fellowship and in holy love-the disciples of Jesus in different and even hostile lands. But, alas! for the weakness of man, these golden visions were soon dispelled. The first thing which roused our Presbyteries to look the question of separation seriously in the face, was the course of the Assembly in venturing to determine, as a Court of Jesus Christ, which it did by necessary implication, the true interpretation of the Constitution of the United States as to the kind of government it intended to form. A political theory was, to all intents and purposes, proLounded, which made secession a crime, the seceding States rebellious, and the citizens who obeyed them traitors. We say nothing here as to the righteousness or unrighteousness of these decrees. What we maintain is, that, whether right or wrong, the Church had no right to make them-affairs in our hands, we may be able, in some competent she transcended her sphere, and usurped the duties of the State. The discussion of these questions, we are sorry to add, was in the spirit and temper of partizan declaimers. The Assembly, driven from its ancient moorings, was tossed to and fro by the waves of popular passion. Like Pilate, it obeyed the clamor of the multitude, and though acting in the name of Jesus, it kissed the sceptre and bowed the knee to the mandates of Northern phrenzy. The Church was converted into the forum, and the Assembly was henceforward to become the arena of sectional divisions and national animosities. If it is desirable that each nation should contain a sepa rate and an independent Church, the Presbyteries of these Confederate States need Lo apology for bowing to the decree of Providence, which, in withdrawing their country from the government of the United States, has at the same time, determined that they should withdraw from the Church of their fathers. It is not that they have ceased to love it-not that they have abjured its ancient principles, or forgotten its glorious history. It is to gave these same principles a richer, freer, fuller development among ourselves than they possibly could receive under foreign culture. It is precisely because we love that Church as it was, and that Church as it should be, that we have resolved, as far as in us lies, to realize its grand idea in the country, and under the Government where God has cast our lot. With the supreme control of ecclesiastic1 measure, to consummate this result. In subjection to a foreign power, we could no more accomplish it than the Church in the United States could have been developed in dependence upon the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The difficulty there would have been, not the distance of Edinburgh from New York, Philadelphia, or Charleston, but the difference in the manners, habits, customs, and ways of thinking, the social, civil, and political institutivas of the people. These same difficulties exist in relation to the Confederate and United States, and render it eminently proper that the Church in each should be as separate and independent as the Governments. We frankly admit that the mere unconstitutionality of the proceedings of the last Assembly is not, in itself considered, a sufficient ground of separation. It is the consequences of these proceedings which make them 80 offensive. It is the door which they open for the introduction of the worst passions of human nature into the deliberations of Church Courts. The spirit of these pro-lasting separation. The antagonism of Northern and ceedings, if allowed to prevail, would forever banish peace from the Church, and there is no reason to hope that the tide which has begun to flow can soon be arrested. The two Confederacies hate each more intensely now than they did in May, and if their citizens should come together upon the same floor, whatever might be the errand that brought them there, they could not be restrained from siniting each other with the fist of wickedness. For the sake of peace, therefore, for Christian charity, for the honor of the Church, and for the glory of God, we have been constrained, as much as in us lies, to remove all occasion of offence. We have quietly separated, and we are grateful to God that, while leaving for the sake of peace, we leave it with the humble consciousness that we, ourselves, have never given occasion to break the peace. We have never confounded Cæsar and Christ, and we have never mixed the issues of this world with the weighty matters that properly belong to us as citizens of the King-ment of maintaining, in one breath, that slavery is an dom of God. 2. Though the immediate occasion of separation was the course of the General Assembly at Philadelphia in relation to the Federal Government and the war, yet there is another ground on which the independent organization of the Southern Church can be amply and scripturally maintained. The unity of the Church does not require a formal bond of union among all the congregations of believers throughout the earth. It does not demand a vast imperial monarchy like that of Rome, nor a strictly universal council, like that to which the complete development of Presbyterianism would naturally give rise. The Church Catholic is one in Christ, but it is not necessarily one visible, all-absorbing organization upon earth. There is no schism where there is no breach of charity. Churches may be perfectly at one in every principle of faith and order, and yet geographically distinct, and mutually independent. As the unity of the human race is not disturbed by its division into countries and nations, so the unity of the spiritual seed of Christ is neither broken nor impaired by separation and division into various Church constitutions. Accordingly, in the Protestant countries, Church organizations have followed national lines. The Calvinistic Churches of Switzerland are distinct from the Reformed Church of France. The Presbyterians of Ireland belong to a different Church from the Presby In addition to this, there is one difference which so radically and fundamentally distinguishes the North and the South, that it is becoming every day more and more appareat that the religious, as well as the secular, interests of both will be more effectually promoted by a compicted Southern sentiment on the subject of slavery lies at the root of all the difficulties which have resnited in the dismemberment of the Federal Union, an 1 involved us in the horrors of an unnatural war. The Presbyter D Church in the United States has been enabled by Divine grace to pursue, for the most part, an eminently conser vative, because a thoroughly scriptural, policy in relation to this delicate question. It has planted itself upon the Word of God, and utterly refused to make slaveholding a sin, or non-slaveholding a term of communion. But though both sections are agreed as to this general principle, it is not to be disguised that the North exercises a deep and settled antipathy to slavery itself, while the South 18 equally zealous in its defence. Recent events can have no other effect them to confirm the antipathy on the one hand and strengthen the attachment on the other. The Nortle ern section of the Church stands in the awkward predica evil which ought to be abolished, and of asserting in the next, that it is not a sin to be visited by exclusion from communion of the saints. The consequence is, that it plays partly into the hands of abolitionists and partly into the hands of slaveholders, and weakens its influence with both. It occupies the position of a prevaricating witness whom neither party will trust. It would be better, there fore, for the moral power of the Northern section of the Church to get entirely quit of the subject. At the same time, it is intuitively obvious that the Southern section of the Church, while even partially under the control of thes who are hostile to slavery, can never have free an i unim peded access to the slave population. Its ministers and elders will always be liable to some degree of suspicion In the present circumstances, Northern alliance would le absolutely fatal. It would utterly preclude the Church from a wide and commanding field of usefulness. This is too dar a price to be paid for a nominal union. We cabnot afford to give up these taillions of souls and cousin them, so far as our efforts are concerned, to hopeless perúi• tion, for the sake of preserving an outward unity which, after all, is an empty shadow. If we would gird ourselves heartily and in earnest, for the work which God has set be fore us, we must have the control of our ecclistical affairs, and declare ourselves separate and independent, And here we may venture to lay before the Cari-tian world our views as a Church, upon the subject of slavery. | We beg a candid hearing. In the first place, we would have it distinctly understood that, in our ecclesiastical capacity, we are neither the friends nor the foes of slavery; that is to say, we have no commission either to propagate or abolish it. The policy of its existence or non-existence is a question which exclusively belongs to the State. We have no right, as a Church, to enjoin it as a duty, or to condemn it as a sin. Our business is with the duties which spring from the relation; the duties of the masters on the one hand, and of their slaves on the other. These duties we are to proclaim and enforce with spiritual sanctions. The social, civi, political problems connected with this great subject transcend our sphere, as God has not entrusted to His Church the organization of society, the construction of Government, nor the allotment of individuals to their various stations. The Church has as much right to preach to the monarchies of Europe, and the despotism of Asia, the doctrines of republican equality, as to preach to the Governments of the S uth the extirpation of slavery. This position is impregnable, unless it can be shown that slavery is a sin. Upon every other hypothesis, it is so clearly a question for the State, that the proposition would never for a moment have been doubted, had there not been a foregone conclusion in relation to its moral character. Is slavery, then, a sin? In answering this question, as a Church, let it be distinctly borne in mind that the only rule of judgment is the written word of God. The Church knows nothing of the intuitions of reason or the deductions of philosophy, except those reproduced in the Sacred Canon. She has, a positive constitution. in the Holy Scriptures, and has no right to utter a single syllable upon any subject, except as the Lord puts words in her mouth. She is founded, in other words, upon express revelation. Her creed is an authoritative testimony of God, and not a speculation, and what she proclaims, she must proclaim with the infallible certitude of faith, and not with the hesitating a-sent of an opinion. The question. then, is brought within a narrow compass: Do the Scriptures directly or indirectly condemn slavery as a sin? If they do not, the dispute is ended, for the Church, without forfeiting her character, dares not go beyond them. yet, if slavery is afterwards expressly mentioned and treated as a lawful relation, it obviously follows, unless Scripture is to be interpreted as inconsistent with itself, that slavery is, by necessary implication, excepted. The Jewish law forbade, as a general rule, the marriage of a man with his brother's wife. The same law expressly enjoined the same marriage in a given case. The given case was, therefore, an exception, and not to be treated as a violation of the general rule. The law of love has always been the law of God. It was enunciated by Moses almost as clearly as it was enunciated by Jesus Christ Yet, notwithstanding this law, Moses and the Apostles alike sanctioned the relation of slavery. The conclusion is inevitable, either that the law is not opposed to it, or that slavery is an excepted case. To say that the prohibition of tyranny and oppression includes slavery, is to beg the whole question. Tyranny and oppression involve either the unjust usurpation or the unlawful exercise of power. It is the unlawfulness,⚫ either in its principle or measure, which constitutes the core of the sin. Slavery must, therefore, be proved to be unlawful, before it can be referred to any such category. The master may, indeed, abuse his power, but he oppresses not simply as a master, but as a wicked master. But, apart from all this, the law of love is simply the inculcation of universal equity. It implies nothing as to the existence of various ranks and gradations in society. The interpretation which makes it repudiato slavery would make it equally repudiate all social, civil, and political inequalities. Its meaning is, not that we should conform ourselves to the arbitrary expectations of others, but that we should render unto them precisely the same measure which, if we were in their circumstance, it would be reasonable and just in us to demand at their hands. It condemns slavery, therefore, only upon the supposition that slavery is a sinful relation-that is, he who extracts the prohibition of slavery from the Golden Rule, begs the very point in dispute. We cannot prosecute the argument in detail, but we have said enough, we think, to vindicate the position of the Southern Church. We have assumed no new attitude We stand exactly where the Church of God has always stood-from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, from Christ to the Reformers, and from the Reformers to our. selves. We stand upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Shall we be excluded from the fellowship of our brethren in other lands, because we dare not depart from the charter of our faith? Shall we be branded with the stigma of reproach, because we cannot consent to corrupt the word of God to suit the intuitions of an infidel philoso of scorn pointed at us, because we utterly refuse to break our communion with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Moses, David, and Isaiah, with Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs, with all the noble army of confessors who have gone to glory from slave-holding countries and from a slave-holding Church, without ever having dreamed that they were living in mortal sin, by conniving at slavery in the midst of them? If so, we shall take consolation in the cheering consciousness that the Master has accepted us. We may be denounced, despised, and cast out of the synagogues of our brethren. But while they are wrangling about the distinctions of men according to the flesh, we shall go forward in our Divine work, and confidently anticipate that, in the great day, as the consequence of our who have come up from the bondage of earth to a nobler freedom than human philosophy ever dreamed of. Others, if they please, may spend their time in declaiming on the tyranny of earthly masters; it will be our aim to resist the real tyrants which oppress the soul-Sin and Satan. These are the foes against whom we shall find it employment enough to wage a successful war. And to this holy war it is the purpose of our Church to devote itself with redoubled energy. We feel that the souls of our slaves are a solemn trust, and we shall strive to present them faultless and complete before the presence of God. Now, we venture to assert that if men had drawn their conclusions upon this subject only from the Bible, it would no more have entered into any human head to denounce slavery as a sin, than to denounce monarchy, aristocracy, or poverty. The truth is, men have listened to what they falsely considered as primitive intuitions, or as necessary deductions from primitive cognitions, and then have gone to the Bible to confirm the crotchets of their vain philosophy? Shall our names be cast out as evil, and the finger phy. They have gone there determined to find a particular result, and the consequence is, that they leave with baving made, instead of having interpreted, Scripture. Slavery is no new thing. It has not only existed for ages in the world, but it has existed, under every dispensation of the covenant of grace, in the Church of God. Indeed, the first organization of the Church as a visible society, separate and distinct from the unbelieving world, was inaugurated in the family of a slaveholder. Among the very first persons to whom the seal of circumcision was affixed, were the slaves of the father of the faithful, some born in his house, and others bought with his money. Slavery again re-appears under the Law. God sanctions it in the first table of the Decalogue, and Moses treats it as an institution to be regulated, not abolished; legiti-humble labors, we shall meet millions of glorified spirits, mated, and not condemned. We come down to the age of the New Testament, and we find it again in the Churches founded by the Apostles under the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost. These facts are utterly amazing, if slavery is the enormous sin which its enemies represent it to be. It will not do to say that the Scriptures have treated it only in a general, incidental way, without any clear implication as to its moral character. Moses surely made it the subject of express and positive legislation, and the Apostles are equally explicit in inculcating the duties which spring from both sides of the relation. They treat slaves as bound to obey and inculcate obedience as an office of religion-a thing wholly self-contradictory, if the authority exercisert over them were unlawful and iniquitous. But what puts this subject in a still clearer light is the manner in which it is sought to extort from the Scriptures a contrary testimony. The notion of direct and explicit condemnation is given up. The attempt is to show that the genius and spirit of Christianity are opposed to it-that its great cardinal principles of virtue are utterly against it. Much stress is laid upon the Golden Rule and upon the general denunciations of tyranny and oppression. To all this we reply, that no principle is clearer than that a case positively excepted cannot be included under a general rule. Let us concede, for a moment, that the laws of love, and the condemnation of tyranny and oppression, seem logically to involve, as a result, the condemnation of slavery; Indeed, as we contemplate their condition in the Southern States, and contrast it with that of their fathers before them, and that of their brethren in the present day in their native land, we cannot but accept it as a gracions Providence that they have been brought in such numbers to our shores, and redeemed from the bondage of barbarism and sin. Slavery to them has certainly been overruled for the greatest good. It has been a link in the wondrous chain of Providence, through which many sons and daughters have been made heirs of the heavenly inheritance. The Providential result is, of course, no justification, if the thing is intrinsically wrong; but it is certainly a mat ter of devout thanksgiving, and no obscure intimation of the will and purpose of God, and of the consequent duty of the Church. We cannot forbear to say, however, that the general operation of the system is kindly and benevolent; |