and advanced to the rights and dignity of freemen; so that now involuntary servitude, except for crime, is illegal and unconstitutional wherever our national authority extends:

That He gave to our people such a spontaneous, impassioned, and unbought loyalty a loyalty that can neither be forced nor feigned such resolute and abiding faith, and such a supreme consciousness of our national unity, that we were able, in the darkest hours, to bear with cheerful patriotism our heavy burdens and our costly sacrifices, so that our very sacrifices have knit us more closely together, and made us love our country

more:

That He has purged and enlightened our national conscience in respect to our national sins, especially the sin of Slavery; and has also made us recognize more fully than before the reality of Divine Providence, the sureness and justice of retribution for national guilt, and the grand fact that a nation can be exalted and safe only as it yields obedience to His righteous laws:

That He bestowed such grace upon our churches and ministry, that with singular unanimity and zeal they upheld our rightful Government, by their unwavering testimony and effectual supplications, identifying the success of the Nation with the welfare of the Church:

That, above all these things, He has, according to His gracious promise, watched over His Church and kept it safe during these troublous times; so that not only has our American Christianity been vindicated, our faith and order maintained intact, and our Christian benevolence enhanced, but our purpose and plans for the future have been also enlarged in some proportion to the needs and growth of our country; while, to crown all these favors with His special benediction, He has also, in these latter days, rained down spiritual blessings in abundant measure upon so many churches all over the land.

This Assembly, while humbly recognizing these judgments and mercies in the past and the present, also bears testimony in respect to our urgent needs and duties as a nation, in view of the new era upon which we are now entering, as follows, namely:

1. Our most solemn national trust concerns that patient race, so long held in unrighteous bondage. Only as we are just to them can we live in peace and safety. Freed by the national arms, they must be protected in all their civil rights by the national power. And, as promoting this end, which far transcends any mere political or party object, we rejoice that the active functions of the Freedmen's Bureau are still continued; and especially that the Civil Rights Bill has become the law of the land. In respect to the concession of the right of suffrage to the colored race, this Assembly adheres to the resolution passed by our Assembly of 1865, (Minutes, p. 42:) "That the colored man should in this country enjoy the right of suffrage, in common with all other men, is but a simple dictate of justice. The Assembly can

not perceive any good reason why he should be deprived of this right on the ground of his color or his race." Even if suffrage may not be universal, let it at at least be impartial.

2. In case such impartial suffrage is not conceded, that we may still reap the legitimate fruits of our national victory over Secession and Slavery, and, that treason and rebellion may not enure to the direct political advantage of the guilty, we judge it to be a simple act of justice, that the constitutional basis of representation in Congress should be so far altered as to meet the exigencies growing out of the abolition of Slavery; and we likewise hold it to be the solemn duty of our National Executive and Congress, to adopt only such methods of reconstruction as shall effectually protect all loyal persons in the States lately in revolt.

3. As loyalty is the highest civic virtue, and treason the highest civil crime, so it is necessary for the due vindication and satisfaction of national justice, that the chief fomenters and representatives of the rebellion should, by due course and process of law, be visited with condign punishment.

4. The Christian religion being the underlying source of all our power, prosperity, freedom, and national unity, we earnestly exhort all our ministers and churches to constant and earnest prayer for the President of the United States and his constitutional counsellors; for the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled; for the Judges in our national Courts; for those that bear rule in our army and navy; and for all persons intrusted with authority; that they may be endued with heavenly wisdom, and rule in the fear of the Lord, and so administer their high trusts, without self-seeking or partiality, that this great Republic, being delivered from its enemies, may renew its youth, and put forth all its strength in the ways of truth and righteousness, for the good of our own land and the welfare of mankind.

5. And we further exhort and admonish the members of our churches to diligent and personal efforts for the safety and prosperity of the nation, to set aside all partisan and sectional aims and low ambitions, and to do their full duty as Christian freemen; to the end that our Christian and Protestant civilization may maintain its legitimate ascendency, and that we become not the prey of any form of infidelity, or subject to any foreign priestly domination; that the sacred interests of civil and religious freedom, of human rights and justice to all, of national loyalty and national unity, may be enlarged and perpetuated, making our Christian Commonwealth a praise among the nations of the earth, exemplifying and speeding the progress of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Resolved, That a copy of the foregoing report be sent to the President of the United States, through the Secretary of State, to the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Standing Committee on Home Missions presented their

report, which was accepted. Pending its consideration the Assembly

Adjourned until to-morrow at 8 o'clock A.M.
Concluded with prayer.

SATURDAY, May 26th, 8 o'clock A.M.

The Assembly met, and was opened with prayer.

The first half hour was occupied with devotional exercises. The minutes of the last session were read and approved.

The Rev. Alfred E. Campbell, D.D., Secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union, addressed the Assembly with reference to the operations of that Society.

The consideration of the report of the Standing Committee on Home Missions was resumed. The report was adopted, and is as follows:

The Standing Committee on Home Missions, in making their report, would suggest that there are three things, in which the Assembly are agreed, viz.: That the work before us is great beyond conception and competition, that the Church is the proper agency for doing it, and now the favoring time, admitting no postponement.

Love of adventure, lust of gain, the march of enterprise, the great tidal movement westward of the nations, and finally, but not less providentially, sedition and war, have been busy clearing and widening the home field for the Church's occupancy. Within the months just past, the Holy Spirit has arisen, and most earnestly invited to the cultivation of the ground, and in many instances to the gathering of already rich harvests. The Church could not be heedless of these signs, without ignoring her manifest mission and destiny in this land. She has heeded them, and hence the marvels that have occupied her way, as in the ancient journeying from Goshen to Canaan: "God has been in the midst of her; he has helped her, and that right early." Is her mission therefore fulfilled? Do we not know, on the contrary, that the land to be possessed is more than the territory already subdued?

From Maine to Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific wave, from the great Lakes to the Southern Gulf, how wide the field stretches out; its needs, even in the older States, East, Middle, and South, how numerous; in the States and Territories West and North-West how immense and stupendous !

The question of opportunity being settled by Divine Providence, that of the way and means of fulfilling both, presses heavily on our hearts. We can hope, on this point, to do little more than emphasize the suggestions of the Report already submitted. We need, of course, to this end a great increase of the Christ

ian ministry. We say increase, because its actually effective portion is already employed, up to the full measure of its capability. If the West has not an adequate supply of ministers, it is because the East cannot spare them. Those whom she can spare as well as not are such as the West do not want; and those she knows not how to spare have already been drawn upon beyond her means. The weakening of the Eastern Church by withdrawing an efficient pastor is simply at the cost also of the West, by cutting off supplies of men and money necessary to its sustenance, and is allowable only under the plea of some peculiar and dominant necessity.

We can, therefore, meet the demand for ministers only by an increase of Candidates for the ministry. And to accomplish this, the piety of the Church must be deepened, and its channels opened and widened in this direction. The attention of our youth must be summoned to this claim on their talents, as a reason why they should anew, or for the first time, consecrate them to Christ. Parents must be made to feel the duty of training and yielding their children to a work so inviting and remunerating. Ministers and elders must take this matter into their special charge; seeking to gain our young men, not by worldly considerations, whether of a literary or pecuniary sort, but by pointing them to the grand opportunities here afforded of usefulness to God and their country through the same earnest consecration and cheerful self-denial, so conspicuously illustrated in the examples of Christ and his apostles.

Next to the provision of preachers is that of preaching places. By this is not meant congregations, which already exist in greater numbers than we can supply, but houses of worship for these congregations. We have cause to understand that there can be no progressive and permanent church edification without a church edifice. It is as much needed for minister and people as houses to live are needed for them. The attention of the Assembly has been so thoroughly called to this subject, the present session, that we need not enlarge upon it.

What we have most required is a settled policy that should not be constantly discussed and revised, but that should be put into instant and persistent operation. It is to be hoped, from the action just taken by this Assembly, that we have now reached that point. We know better than heretofore what we have need to do, and what we are able to do that which remains is to do it. The chief discouraging hindrance of a debated plan being removed, let us arise and build. Let the gift fund be swelled as the loan fund never was. The wants of the Great West have become measurably appreciated by this convocation on the right bank of the Mississippi; and let us return to our congregations to report what our eyes have seen and our ears heard, and thus prepare our people for new and more liberal benefactions to this object, at some not remote day to be agreed upon for a united effort. In this way we shall best silence the voice of complaint,

issuing from so many promising missionary centres, and telling how the Word of God is stayed for lack of houses of worship. The next report at our General Assembly will be that of gratitude for the unhindered upbuilding of Zion's waste places.

The money question, however, does not pertain to the Church Erection Fund only, but to all departments of the missionary work. That it demands new discussion is evident from the Treasurer's statistics. One of these discloses the average annual contribution on the part of our membership of barely 63 cents, which is 53 cents per month, or a cent and a quarter per week. If we have made advances in later over former years, it is clear there is still wide room for improvement. It needs but a glance at the greatness of our work to reveal the inadequacy of our efforts. It needs but another glance at the vastness of our resources to expose an exceeding parsimony in their disposal.

One important suggestion the Committee would offer in this connection. It relates to Christian giving as a duty to be enforced on every church not only, but on every individual. It is not enough that contributions should be taken in the Sabbath congregation; but in addition to this, or instead of it, by collectors passing through the congregation, and calling upon each family and person. A general observance of this plan would, it is believed, immediately increase our total receipts 75 or 100 per

cent.

The Committee recommend, that an effort be made to realize an average contribution of at least $1 per member the present year. This would insure a total collection of $120,000, and would require a marked advance in our wealthy as well as feeble churches.

Meanwhile the home missionary work enlarges upon our hands, and calls for an immediate increase of faith, labor, and prayer. There is no real source of discouragement but in the narrowness of our own hearts. There is no department of effort into which we have entered with any vigor, upon which God has not shed his approving and inspiring favor. Witness to this the blessing attending our special effort in behalf of East-Tennessee, in a discouraged and distracted church reïnspirited, dispersed congregations regathered, in pastors settled over long vacant parishes, and the revival of religion experienced in unprecedented power. Witness the story told by delegates from all parts of the land, of the descending and quickening Spirit.

Even the labors employed on behalf of our foreign population, usually regarded as far from hopeful access, have not been without significant results. The Presbytery of Newark, after a sixteen years' experiment among the Germans, have now, as its fruit, six churches organized on a Presbyterian basis, all but one furnished with houses of worship, with settled pastors, good congregations, a vigorous prospective growth, and a healthful, positive influence going out upon the surrounding population in behalf of Sabbath observance, temperance, social order, and every