which it brings down on Christianity and the Christian civilization to which it belongs.

After much discussion and debate, the two great schools of Presbyterianism have taken ground, strongly and unequivocally, on the conservative principle of allowing slaveholding among their membership. Nor is there any essential difference between them, in this respect. This is one of their common principles, taken deliberately, and designed to be carried out with vigor, and persisted in forever. They hope that slavery may tumble down sometime, and be overthrown. They would rejoice in its overthrow, but they do not feel authorized to prohibit it to the membership of their churches. They have the power to do it, if they had the will. They have the will to do it, if they thought that such a measure would meet the approbation of the great Head of the church, and be for the best. But they do not so understand the will of God, and the exigencies of his cause and kingdom. They do not understand slavery to be an evil of such magnitude that it ought, in all possible ways, to be discountenanced and opposed; and yet they think it, on the whole, very wrong; both a great sin and a great calamity. Some think that the holders of slaves ought to be bought off from their slaveholding, and that the whole nation ought to enter into a scheme of purchasing up all the slaves at the market price, and sending them to Africa. This scheme of purchase pretends to have some admiration for self-sacrificing generosity, and despises the littleness of those selfish bigots, that wish to reclaim men from profitable sins, or induce them to leave off sin at a pecuniary sacrifice. No! say they, let the reformer put his shoulder to the wheel; let him bear the pecuniary expense of the reformation, and make good the losses it may occasion. It is replied that the little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked; that godliness is profitable in all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come; and that no man can lose property in the service of God, and the performance of duty, without ordinarily in the end being a great gainer

in this life, besides obtaining in the next world life everlasting. All these are Scripture principles, but they go for nothing on the subject of the supposed ruin to be encountered by giving up the assumed rights of the slaveholder, and conceding to human beings the ownership of themselves. This must be done at a sacrifice, and the man that makes that concession must be rewarded for his sacrifices in so doing at the expense of the reformer who calls him to repentance, and instructs him in his duty.

The consent of the church to African slavery for the space of three hundred years, and, while disciplining numbers for stealing five dollars, or even five cents, or for retaining and using stolen property, refusing to discipline for holding men in the condition. of beasts and things, as chattels-personal, under the absolute control of the possessor, will be noted in future times as one of the wonders and mysteries of human ignorance and inconsistency. But so it is. In the current orthodoxy of Romanism, a man may be a slaveholder, and hold his fellow-men in the condition of beasts and things, under the absolute power of a property possession, to use them for his interest and pleasure, regardless of their interests and pleasures, and be a good Christian. As such he is admitted to the church, allowed the benefit of its sacraments, advanced to hold church offices, and his name inscribed on the church records as one that denies himself; that follows his Divine Master through evil report and through good report; that sells all he has, if need be, to give to the poor; that loves his neighbor as himself, and esteems others better than himself; and that seeks, above all things, the glory of God and the good of his creatures, in all his doings.

How do

This is the way the Catholics treat slaveholding. the Protestants treat it? The Episcopalians, Methodists south, and Old and New School Presbyterians, all treat it in the same way, precisely. They allow it in their communions. They will not prohibit it to their membership. The Presbyterians have at different times reported against slavery, and exhorted their members to desist from it as far as convenient; but they have never interdicted it, and cannot be induced to interdict it.

Such a measure is deemed, in their bodies, highly extravagant and improper, highly oppressive and injurious, as well as contrary to order and the constitution of the church.

The consequence is, that slavery thrives among us, under our republican constitution; amid all our devotion to our own liberties, and the independence of the nation, and in the face of our solemn declarations that God has created men with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which no man and no potentate may invade with impunity. Till the church abolishes slavery under her jurisdiction, we need not expect the state to abolish it under its jurisdiction. If it is really wrong, let the church prohibit it to her membership; if it is right, let both the church and state strive together to redeem it from reproach, to invest it with the glory and honor of rectitude and love of the good and true, and to make it universal and perpetual.

The church has had its trial questions in all ages; questions, that have put it to the proof, that have tried its spirit and principles, and that have in their results demonstrated its purity or corruption. In the first ages the question of conniving at idolatry was of this kind. Christians would not worship idols, they would not give countenance to idol-worship, in any form or degree. In later times, it was the question of worshipping the mass, and submitting to the supremacy of the Pope; and now, it is the question of liberty, or African slavery. Different characters meet this question differently. The Papal, Episcopal, Methodist south, and Presbyterian churches, meet it with toleration, a reluctant toleration; a toleration accompanied with occasional remonstrances, and denunciations of the thing tolerated, as not altogether right. The Quakers, and many Congregational churches, meet it with reprobation and prohibition, as equally a crime against God and man; and as a crime to be prohibited, peremptorily and universally; and not only so, but as a great crime, tending to immense evil, and the more to be resisted and suppressed on account of the magnitude of its evil.

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CHAPTER XIV.

CRITICAL POSITION OF NEW SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANISM.

IT has been a serious question with New School Presbyterians, whether their order should be made permanent in its present form, or be gradually changed to be of a somewhat different type. It is now a very slight variation of Old School Presbyterianism, so slight as not to be ordinarily observable, except to a very discriminating mind. The majority of members in both churches do not perceive the difference, and require considerable teaching perfectly to apprehend it. In respect to a majority of ministers and members, there is no difference. They might, for aught that they know, or that anybody can demonstrate, be on one side or the other, with equal consistency. But, taken all in. all, there is some difference. The entire New School, as a whole, adheres to the confession a little less closely than the other body. It is a little less reverential of the authority of creeds and confessions, a little more given to change. The Old School body, as such, is a little more active in promoting the thorough Christian training of the young; insists a little more on infant baptism, and is a little more denominational in its feelings and policy. Formerly, New School men were deemed the most interested in revivals of religion, and the most interested and engaged in the use of means to promote them. But, if there ever was a difference in this respect, that has passed away. It hardly seems possible that the New School should always exist as a separate, independent body, with so little deviation from the Old School. It might well consent to sustain church-boards for the sake of reünion with its Old School brethren, even against its judgment of expediency on the

whole, if that measure was judged of alone. The sacrifice would be slight. And a majority of all its ministers and members would almost immediately prefer that arrangement to any other. Indeed, it is doubtful now whether a full discussion of the subject, in any New School assembly, would not leave a majority favorable to the plan of church-boards. What, then, is to hinder a reunion? No great principles of religious belief; no great diversities in policy or order. The two bodies, as a whole, are more alike than the well-united parts of many other religious bodies; nor would there be anything to quarrel about if the two bodies were together; not even Dr. Beecher and Mr. Barnes. These fathers might be liable to a little criticism, but they would obtain general forbearance.

What is there to keep these bodies forever apart? They might unite next year. The Old School might say: "Brethren, we distrusted some of you, and cut you off. We thought you were unsound in the faith. But we are convinced to the contrary If you were unsound, or verging towards unsoundness, our discipline has had the effect to reclaim you. Come back again. Our doors are open to you, our hearts are enlarged. It was an evil day when we thrust you forth. But you are of us still. Come into our churches, come into our pulpits, and inherit with us the whole land." If such a call was made, what is to hinder its being immediately accepted? How many hearts would respond instantly: "Lo, glad we come. We have both had our faults, we have both committed our errors. If you have been suspicious of evil when none was intended, and in some cases been disposed to restrict and curb our liberties, we have been impatient and resentful. If God can forgive us, we can easily forgive you. And we do forgive you, and beg your forgiveness. We were not altogether in the right; you were not altogether in the wrong. We will forget and mutually forgive, and be one again." Then where is the New School church? Absorbed and lost; but not missed. It fills no such mighty void but that it can be spared. No great interest of humanity