President Davis and Vice-President Stephens's opinions of this party : it is of less consequence, for they are widely circulated.

Is there any reason for the frequent denial in this country that this is the avowed aim of the party which elected Mr. Lincoln for President? Is there any reason for asking, with these facts well known, “ When did we hear a breath about liberation from the North, where the black man is more contemptuously despised than in the Suth, until it could be used as the last shift of a murderous and oppressive policy?" Qur advice to all such questioners is in the words of Holy Writ: “He that hath ears to hear let him bear.” And again, “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath ; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” It is from such questioners as these that á “savage murmur” has been sent “ across the Atlantic wave," and not from “the cheerless cottages of the English artisan." Thank God, they know what the conflict is about; they "know how to suffer and be strong” in patience and in love of truth and freedom. Friends and foes agree there about the principles of this Republican party, though much ignorance prevails, and is willingly allowed to prevail, in this country about its professions and deeds.

What has been the action of the minority, pro-slavery, anti-Constitutional party, since the triumph of the Republican party? Did they submit to the majority according to the requirements of the law and their own admission that the party had constitutionally triumphed! All the world knows they inaugurated insurrection. They did not wait for the new Government to come into power to form their opinion of its procedure, but the long-prepared rebellion stood out in its completeness. What for? "Independence," says a noble lord. They have never said 80 except when they meant by it freedom from restraint about to be put upon their fifty-six years of habitual violation of the Constitution. Free trade,” say others. In what? They had themselves made the laws and fixed the tariffs of the country for fifty-six years. In what, we ask? In human beings; in men and women, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and children. Yes; in this traffic they wanted, and avowed their want, to be free, both in North and South, “to carry their property into any State or territory of the Union.” Free to make the whole Union a slave Republic. Free to open afresh the African slave-trade. Free to conquer Cuba and any place in the Western Ocean where the coloured race could be enslaved. This is the free trade they wanted. Away with such apologies! Let them speak for themselves. Vice-President Stephens, after admitting that “ African slavery.... was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution, and that the fathers of the old Constitution held that the enslavement of the African race was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically, adds, “Our new Goveróment is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid. The cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. The stone which was rejected by the first builders is become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice. This is the Lord's doings, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” The civilized world has rung with their blasphemy.

They declared war against their national Government. They authorized the raising of 100,000 men. They fired the first shot. They had stolen the muni. tion of the Government. They had taken possession of several forts and vessels of the Union to carry on war against a Government they had made defencelegg. On what did they rely for success ? On the assassination of the President. On the recantation of the political faith of the North. On European necessity for cotton. “Cotton,” said they, “is king.” But the North calmly replied, " He is not crowned yet.” Hear them: “We know that were it possible to annihilate our cotton crop for next year, not a Government in Europe could exist as at present six months hence. There will be revolution in Europe. There will be

starvation there. Our cotton is the element that will do it.” “British lords hold their lands, British bishops hold their revenues, Victoria holds her sceptre, by the grace of cotton as truly as by the grace of God." Thank God, this is idle talk. But it shows the spirit of the men. This is the party that hates England, that bas always bullied England. The only party that bas made war against England, or on that continent; that has made America and its politics contemptible to Europe. The party that can talk of burning the staple of our industry and starving our operatives. The party that voted against Congressional aid for the starving Irish in 1847. The party that, to bully England into recognition of this slave Republic, can talk of “playing France upon England." The party whose adherents in the North sought to inflame the passions of the people against England in the Trent affair, and to provoke war between the two countries, in order to cripple the present Government of the United States in its war with the anarchists of their own land. The party that, accustomed to shed blood of innocent men and women, has wrapped that continent in the flame of war and drenched the land in blood. The party, alas ! that the aristocracy of England and the press of England “ delight to honour," but from which, thank God, the hearts of the people of England turn with loathing.

Let us ask, further, what has been the conduct of the Liberty party since its accession to power? It exhausted its efforts to conciliate its traitorous, rebellious brethred. It did not make war till all hope of peace was at an end, and Fort Sumter had fallen. It scrupulously avoided giving them a pretext for secession. Nor have their foes alleged one. It entered on warfare to maintain the Union as menaced with destruction from the slaveocracy of the South ; first to maintain that Union as originally constituted, and next to do all it could Constitutionally to check the growth of that slavery which had from the beginning threatened to become the rock on which the Union would split. How has it fulfilled its pur. pose and promise? It has lost no part of the Union since the slave party seceded. On the contrary, not a battle has been fought on free soil. Vast portions of rebeldom it has wrested from anarchy. It has reduced the area of secession from upwards of 800,000 square miles to less than 300,000; and the population in arins against it from upwards of 7,000,000 to about 2,500,000.

What has it done to fulfil its promise in regard to slavery? It at once executed the laws for the suppression of the African slave-trade, and consigned Captain Gordon to death, as convicted of piracy. Contrast this with Buchanan's connivance at the escape of Captain Tatham, convicted for the same offence. It has seized five vessels fitting out for the slave-trade and condemned them. It has recognised the negro Republics of Hayti and Liberia. It has declared the property of rebels, in slaves especially, to be forfeited, and made provision for them as they escaped to the protection of the Union arms. It has offered to compensate the loyal and slave-holding States for their voluntary emancipation of their slaves, and some of those States have accepted the offer. It invited Great Britain to form a treaty with it for the suppression of the African slave-trade, and conceded for this purpose what had been denied by the Democrats-the right of search. It has abolished slavery in the district of Columbia, and in all the places where the national authority is supreme. It has prohibited slavery for ever in the territories of the Union, in accordance with the fundamental law of the Constitution. It has proclaimed liberty to slaves of rebels, in virtue of military power invested in the President, the only legal power that could be used for the purpose. And yet it is persistently denied in this country that the war has anything to do with slavery, and most positively asserted that, so far as the Government has shown any favour to the slaves, it is hypocritical (as the readers of THE CAURCI know). We leave these facts to answer all such reck. less and unfounded statements. They speak for themselves.

I know it is said that the Government is insincere, “because it does not eman. cipate where it can, and proclaims emancipation where it has no power to enforce it.” Where can it emancipate that it has not? “In the loyal slave States," is the reply. For the very reason that they are loyal the Government can do nothing but recommend them to emancipate and offer compensation, and that it has done. The national Government has no jurisdiction within the loyal States to annul or amend any of the laws of those States. Their autonomy is guaranteed by the Constitution. This fact deterred the framers of the Constitution from abolishing slavery as then existing : it deters the present Government for the same Constitutional reason.

Has it no power to enforce its proclamation in the rebel States ? Ask the quarter of a million slaves that are slaves no longer, but freemen. Give the proclamation time to work, and the slave Republic will soon have lost its boasted “corner-stone.” Ask the hundred thousand of them that are gratuitously clothed and daily fed at the expense of the national Government, if the North hates the negro as much as the South. Ask them if the proclamation is “ a piece of hollow statecraft, and bodes no true Gospel to their souls." Where in the North can they be wbipped, and sold, and killed, without law to protect them or punish their destroyers? Hear their prayers for the good, honest President and his Government. Note their readiness to fight the battle of their freedom. Enough! He that will not receive all this testimony to the uprightness of the President and his Government in regard to slavery wants not evidence, but a heart to love the truth.

This is the Government against which England's press has poured forth its most rancorous words, has piled up falsehoods, and systematically belied the logic of facts. Yet this Government is more the friend of England than any Democratic one that preceded it. Would those men of the Confederacy have disavowed the act of Commander Wilks in “the Trent affair,” as this Govern. ment had resolved on doing before England's claim was made? This is the people that send their vessels with food for our distressed operatives, whom the Confederates boast of being able to starve. And this is their kindness in return for our bitter, untrue, and unjust words about them and their conflict; their return for our undisguised joy at the prospect of national disruption; their return for the sympathy of England's aristocracy with their rebellious sons, for the capital of English merchants, employed to the extent of millions, in sustain. ing their slave-holding anarchists, and without whose material aid they could not long persist in their guilty rebellion. This is their return for Alabamas (which may, with truth, be designated “the audacious pirates," the “burglarious rangers of the wave”), built in British ports, and manned by British seamen, to prey on the peaceful commerce of a pation at amity with ourselves. And withal, to show us this kind return while wading deeply through its first baptism of blood and fire. All honour to the people that can do this—that can return good for evil! God will not forget such a people in the evil day, for “he is not unrighteous to forget such work and labour of love." All honour to the people more skilled, perhaps, in the arts of peace than in the arts of war -a people triumphantly skilful in arts of utility, as our International Exhibition of last year decisively proved, for it awarded eighty-five prizes among the ninetyeight exhibitors that crossed the Atlantic at the last moment to keep their country-plunged by anarchists in war-from being forgotten, when the nations of the earth were represented in peaceful competition; skilful, also, in the highest arts of graceful strength and beauty, as the “ Sibyl” and “ Cleopatra" of their “Storey," the chaste and massive guardians of the Roman Court, revealed to all appreciative admirers of sculpture who visited the Exhibition. And yet some tell us “ they looked almost in vain for some specimen of art or tribute of good-will from the West.” Pity not the nation that achieved such triumphs, but her blind critics. “Eyes have they, but they see not.”

The facts now adduced will, I hope, guide the readers of THE CHURCH to right conclusions respecting the causes of this war, and to right sentiments towards the combatants. The facts are these. That the Constitution of the United States is not pro-slavery, but the contrary. That the pro-slavery legislation of more than fifty years bas been in violation of the Constitution. That the Republican party --now for the first time in power-is a thoroughly anti-slavery and Constitutional party. Friends and foes are one in their testimony to this, that the pro-slavery party now in rebellion against Constitutional authority is so because of the anti-slavery principle of the present Government, and that the legislation of the Liberty party now in power has been nobly anti-slavery, and withal, Constitutional, and anti-slavery 80 far as the Constitution would allow. Wbat answer, then, shall be given to the question, What is the cause of the war P If we reply, “ Slavery”-emphatically, “Slavery!"-will any one, with these facts before him, say, "Nothing of the kind.” And, regardless of facts, who has any right to use such sweeping negations ! It were vain to argue further with those who thus give the lie to the anti and pro-slavery parties alike, to the breakers and defenders of a nation's integrity. We ask for a verdict conBonant with the facts adduced. In order to this, we ask for a thoughtful con. sideration of the whole case.

Reader, ponder these facts, and you will be constrained to cast aside all indifference and neutrality respecting this conflict, as both cowardly and unworthy of a Christian. You will no longer conceal Southern proclivities beneath the common subterfuge which says, “Sympathy with the North! away with it! Sympathy with the South ! away with it!" Ponder these facts, and you will boldly say, “No sympathy with a slave Republic; none with those who urge the recognition of it, who“ aid and abet” it with the “sinews of war," but manly opposition everywhere." Ponder these facts, and your sympathies will be with a people who are no “infatuate maniacs fighting for a phantasy," but bravely struggling to extend the area and blessings of freedom, to limit the area and curses of slavery ; struggling, not for “conquest,” but for national life. Ponder these facts, and aid in correcting erroneous conceptions and sentiments so prevalent concerning this national crisis. Ponder these facts, and you will, above all, pray that God will “in wrath remember mercy;" that he will speedily cause this conflict of barbarism with civilization, of anarchy with Constitutional government, of slavery with liberty, to cease on the entire continent of America. Brethren, pray, and trust, and hope ; " for there is nothing too hard for the Lord.”

CONFORMITY TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND UNJUST

TO NONCONFORMISTS.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM ROBINSON.* A BOY stood on the banks of a pond, | Christian, his lordship is a great grievance, pelting the frogs that were croaking in the For Dr. Tait, as a man, a Christian, and a water, and was amazed that the frogs should Christian minister, I have high respect. think they had any grievance to complain There are not many of the people of Great of. The Lord Bishop of London, clad in Britain who have observed his thorough lawn, taunts Dissenters with their supposed evangelicalism ; his admirable decision in difficulty in finding a grievance. Dissenters proclaiming the great worth of human souls, beg to tell him that to every enlightened and the trivial importance of steeples and freeman, and yet more to every enlightened l chancels; and his excellent example in going

• From “The Sin of Conformity,” By the Rer, William Robinson, Third edition, revised and enlarged.

into the highways to seek the lost, with | house, and receives, in lieu of the church, more loving appreciation than the author of rate of 15s. 9d., religious accommodation these pages. But for bis official status I for himself and his family. A Dissenter cannot affect to have any other feeling than renting it would have to pay the 15s. 9d, sorrow and pity : sorrow, that an excellent without receiving anything in return, The Christian should assume the illegitimate amount is small, but the principle involved authority which his title implies ; pity, for is not the less oppressive. so good a man, because while building with A farm of 300 acres is to be sold. The gold, silver, and precious stones with the church-rate averages £5 yearly, equivalent left hand, he builds with wood, hay, and to £100 capital. If an Episcopalian buy stubble with the right. Can it be that Dr. and occupy it, he obtains for that £5 yearly, Tait's conscience fails to accuse him of religious accommodation for his household, bearing a title, and holding an office, If a Dissenter buy and occupy it, he gets thoroughly anti-Christian-an office and no return for the £5 a year ; that is to say, title quite as foreign to both the genius the farm is £100 dearer to him than to the and precepts of the New Covenant as the Churchman. title and office of Cardinal or Pope? If Our murmurs we are told are unreason, Dr. Wiseman choose to protrude himself on able, because we buy or hire property subject the public with “great swelling words of to the tax. Why, that is the very gravamen vanity,” assuming the empty title of Lord of our grievance. All over the land when Archbishop of Westminster, I am grieved we buy or hire property we are compelled to by so obyious a violation of the dictates of pay a tax, not to the nation, but to Episco. good sense, and of the Bible ; but I suffer palians; and under this injustice, Nonconno civil wrong. But when Lord Palmer- formists have been left to suffer from the ston gives to Dr. Tait a title offensive to year 1688 to the present day. “That citizens more than half the people of the realm, and should pay," says Dr. Merle D’Aubigné, lavishes on him ten thousand a year of “ for that from which they derive no profit, public property, and he uses the influence for that by which they have no wish to ihus created in magnifying “our ecclesias, profit, for that which possibly they repel, for tical establishment," and repressing and that which they condemn: is that I ask an taunting Dissenters, I have, in addition, equitable law ?” The amount in the case of civil grievances to endure; and, as a citizen, church-rates may be small, but the tyranny I have the right to demand that such of the exaction is galling; as Episcopalians partiality should be brought to an utter would feel if they suffered, instead of inflictend. If the Bishop be disposed to make a ing it. catalogue of Dissenters' grievances, he may As a citizen, I claim to be placed find a tolerably strong example to begin civilly on a footing of perfect equality with with in the palace at Fulham.

all other subjects, so long as I discharge If Nonconformists complain of church the duties of citizenship. If a privilege be rates, it is stoutly denied that they have any conferred by the state on my fellow-subjects, good ground of complaint. A member of which I am by the state debarred from the Government, to whom I applied on the seeking, that is favouritism; and a grievance subject, defended the impost as follows. Il inflicted on me, unless it can be shown that give his words as embodying, with brevity I have committed some offence which the and force, the argument which seems to state has a right to punish, or failed of some have greatest weight with the supporters of duty which it is the province of the state to the tax.

reward. Every privilege of every kind given • The church-rate, like all other local | by the state to an Episcopalian as an Episcotaxes, is a charge upon the landlord, not palian, is a wrong done to me: and, as every upon the occupier; neither having just i one knows, such privileges are countless. cause of complaint: the former having If the Prince of Wales, or any future either inherited or purchased his property heir to the crown, were, by study of the subject to this charge ; the latter having in word of God, to embrace the opinions of Dr. his calculations when hiring the land or Chalmers, or of the Honourable and Rev. tenement, deducted the same from the rent B. W. Noel, he must either violate his conwhich he has agreed to pay to his landlord.” science or renounce the throne. None but

A house is to be let, the net rating of , a member of the establishment is suffered to which is £63. A church-rate of 3d. is reign ; and so loftily has the establishment, levied annually. An Episcopalian rents the which thus fetters the monarch, reared its