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ART. VII. THE AMERICAN QUARTERLY CHURCH REVIEW, AND OUR NATIONAL CRISIS.

SINCE the making up of our last Number of this Review, the storm which for years has been gathering, has broken upon the Country, and our once glorious Union has been dissolved. In times of Revolution men cannot, if they would, hesitate to declare themselves; and we here put on record our interpretation of the events of these troublous times, and of the duties which they impose. And first of all, we are grateful to be able to say, that, in looking back over our own thirteen years of Editorial labor, we have not only done nothing to precipitate such a calamity, but that we have done everything which seemed to us to lie in our power to avert it. We make no apology for quoting here from two among many letters lately received. The first is from one high in position in the Church at the South, and than whom no one is stronger in the confidence of Churchmen, both North and South. His statement of Southern sentiment and Southern affairs should be widely read.

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Sad days are these, and full of terror. I am glad that the Church Review, like the Church, has been faithful to the Truth. We have looked and longed for some olive-branch from the North. Northerners do not understand the matter. What we want is quiet. We cannot, we dare not go on as in the last few years. Justice to the negro forbids it; for agitation brings discontent and rebellion; and, on these, follow restraint and discipline. Our American servitude used to have its own mild and friendly character. The Abolitionists are doing all in their power to change it into the hateful type of Cuban slavery. I fear it is too late now for remedy, and can only pray, that to the many sins of brethren against brethren, blood-guiltiness may not be added."

A Clergyman of mature age and standing, at the West, writes:

"Suppose every house-holder had carefully imbued his own mind and those of his family with the principles of that Article in the Review, on "Loyalty to the Constitution," think you our political hori

zon would at this time have been so overcast as at present with such portentous and ominous clouds, foreshadowing such a tornado of evils as may engulf us in one wide ruin ?" ** I like the conservatism, the high and exalted tone of the work on all subjects treated in the American Quarterly Church Review."

The subject of Slavery has presented itself to us, as Reviewers, in its two fold character and relations, Morally and Socially. In the first aspect, even supposing it to be really as great an evil and wrong as it; most violent opposers represent it—and we do not argue that question here-yet it surely is one which is aggravated, and only aggravated, by the measures which these men propose as a remedy. Besides, and chiefly, the source of all true Moral Reform is from above, not from beneath; and it works healthily from within, not from without; in a word, it is in diffusing through the heart of the Church and of Society, the reforming and germinating principle of the Love of God, as manifested in the Plan of His Grace. Such in theory, and such in practice, are the relations to each other, of the Fall of Man, and the Gospel of Christ; of the World, and the Church. The world is full of Moral Evils, social and political-of corruption, and fraud, and falsehood, and extortion, and licentiousness, and gambling, and robbery, and murder,—all springing from one alone Source, the Fall of Man,-all having one alone adequate Remedy, the Gospel of Christ. This was the Theory and the only Theory of Reform which was sanctioned by our Saviour and His Apostles; it is the only one on which the Church and the State can ever exist together, and work, each in their separate spheres, in mutual harmony. This is the Theory of Reform which we have maintained uniformly and earnestly in the pages of this Review. Whether Servitude is, or is not, the normal condition of the Negro Race; whether Slavery is, or is not, recognized by the Old and New Testaments, and by the Moral Law, are points, which, as we have said, we do not, and need not here discuss. They are vastly important in the application of our principle; they do not touch the principle itself.

As a Social Institution, aside from those deeper and stronger considerations which appeal to the Political Christian Economist, we are met at the outset by the stern logic of facts.

Slavery was originally introduced and planted on American soil, mainly by British agency and capital. After the Revolution, the Slave-trade was extended down to the year 1808, by the vote of all the delegates from the New England States to the Convention that formed the Constitution. Of the vessels in the African Slave-trade, from January 1, 1804, to December 31, 1807, sixty-one were owned in Charleston, S. C., and fifty-seven in Rhode Island. It should be remembered, too, that at the adoption of the Constitution, Slavery existed in every one of the Thirteen States, (except two,) and that, in and by that Constitution, certain mutual compromises were sacredly agreed upon, and certain rights to the slave-holding States were solemnly and by oath guaranteed. The "delivering" up of fugitive slaves was one of those rights, pledged by the oath of every man who becomes a citizen of the United States. Without these compromises and guarantees the Union could never have been formed. In that Union, and under that Constitution, the country has reached a degree of national prosperity such as has no parallel in the history of the world. Our popular Christianity, too, under its various forms and names, has more than kept pace with our material growth; and while Error and Crime have assumed hideous proportions, yet Religion in its diffusive energy and power has made achievements which have no equal record since the early Missionary days of the Church.

And yet within the last score of years, elements of mischief have been rapidly developing and rallying their forces. An Infidelity, which has lost none of its old hatred to Christ, which denies the Christian Theory and Plan of Reform in all their fundamental verities, is assuming in our days a new attitude, not only in respect to Slavery, but to every thing which it denominates Moral and Social Evils; and it places Government of all sorts, the unequal division of Property, the Marriage Relation, &c., &c., in this category. Not many years since, in one of its own Conventions, its leaders announced to its followers this change of programme in its policy of propagandism. Putting on the garb of an angel of light, it has become in our days a professed Moral Reformer, and like the Robespierres and the Jacobins of the French Revolution, it

proclaims itself par excellence "The Friend of the People." Taking advantage of the Press, the Popular Lecture, &c., it substitutes its maudlin philanthropy for the Religion of the Cross, and it has carried with it the prejudices and passions of large masses of the people in its attacks on the Gospel and the Church, and so is preparing the way for that "Reign of Terror," which its certain tendency is to promote.

Nor is this all. Professed Ministers of Christ have given up their old Creeds and Platforms, and now preach Reform as an end, rather than that Gospel which is the fountain and source of all true Reform. They denounce, openly and contemptuously, the Bible itself, when it conflicts with their "Higher Law" teachings; and thus they have already called into existence that terrible engine of mischief, a misguided public conscience; while, by their persistent and violent denunciations of our Southern brethren, from the pulpit and the press, they have fanned into a devouring element the flame of national discord. Here, indeed, is one of the worst aspects in which this whole subject now presents itself: for there is nothing more unreasonable, unyielding and dangerous than a religious fanaticism.

To show that we are not mistaken as to the influences under which the present state of feeling has been produced, we cite a few out of a multitude of facts.

We shall not quote from the Sermons of a certain class, and a pretty large class, of Northern Preachers. It is enough to say, that some of them have publicly declared, that if the Bible does not sustain them in their war upon Slavery and Slaveholders, they will trample the Bible beneath their feet. Full citations from the Sermons of these men should be gathered, however, and preserved as an important feature in the history of our times.

At a Monthly Meeting of the New London County (Conn.,) Congregational Ministers, held at Norwich, Feb. 13th, 1861, the following Resolution was adopted.

“Resolved, That in the opinion of this Association, in the present juncture of our National affairs, any compromise with the South which involves the extension, protection or recognition of Slavery by the National Government, is both impolitic and wrong."

The New York Independent, a Newspaper conducted by Congregational Ministers, (and to which Horace Greeley and the Rev. Dr. Tyng! are regular contributors,) a paper with a larger circulation and wider influence than any other professedly religious paper in the country, thus discloses the plans of the party which that paper represents:

"The people will not levy war nor inaugurate a revolution, even to relieve Kansas, until they have first tried what they can do by voting. If this peaceful remedy should fail to be applied this year, then the people will count the cost wisely, and decide for themselves boldly and firmly, which is the better way, to rise in arms and throw off a government worse than that of old King George, or endure it another four years, and then vote again."

Of the "Fugitive Slave Law," a Law framed to protect rights guaranteed by the very letter of the Constitution,-a Constitution which the Editors of that paper have sworn before God to obey,-that paper said:

"To the fugitives themselves ** this Law is no Law, ** and to resist it even unto death, is their right, and it may be their duty. * * To each individual fugitive, to every man or woman, who, having escaped from bondage and tasted liberty, is in hourly peril of being seized and dragged back to Slavery, we say, Be fully prepared for your own defense. If to you death seems better than slavery, then refuse not to die,—whether on the way-side, at your own threshold, or even as a felon upon the gallows. Defend your liberty and the liberty. of your wife and children, as you would defend your life and theirs against the assassin. If you die thus, you die nobly, and your blood shall be the redemption of your race. Should you destroy the life of your assailant, you will pass into the custody of the Criminal Law

* under an indictment for murder; but the verdict of the community, and the verdict of almost any jury will be, justifiable homicide in self-defense. * * Or should a different verdict be found, and you be condemned to die as a murderer, your ignominious head shall be luminous with the halo of a martyr, and your sacrifice shall be for the deliverance of your people."

Of Mr. Seward, and his late conservative position, so nobly taken, the same paper says:

"But he too, like others before him who have turned their faces to the wall, and died in drivelling sorrow at the defeat of their small ambitions, has failed us in the hour of need."

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