can it be remedied by right action, even such action as Albert Barnes recommends in his two books, "The Bible and Slavery," and "The Church and Slavery"?

But it is said, again, that the Congregationalists set the example of this anti-coöperative action by abrogating "the Plan of Union " between Presbyterians and Congregationalists. This too is incorrect. The abrogation of the Plan of Union, if it be the fault of anybody, is the fault of the Presbyterians, as a statement of the facts will show. The Plan of Union, by the way, was formed, on one side, only by the Congregationalists of one State, Connecticut. It was made, in 1801, by the General Assembly on one side, and the General Association of Connecticut on the other. But let that pass. The Plan of Union was first "abrogated" by the General Assembly, and that before the division in 1837. And if our New School brethren are, as they claim, the real General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the true successor of the undivided Assembly, they are responsible for it. But let that pass also. We admit that they were opposed to its abrogation. But, and this is of essential importance, after the "Constitutional" Assembly came into being, the Plan of Union, though favored in form by the New School Presbyterians, was by them constantly and persistently violated, in spirit and in fact, and thus eventually destroyed. They always refused in one most essential and vital feature to administer it according to its equal terms. They would not ordain a Congregational minister over a Presbyterian church, while Presbyterian ministers were freely ordained over Congregational churches. Thus the Plan, as administered persistently by the Presbyterians, became a trap and a snare, a Plan of Union in which the advantage was all or chiefly on one side. Presbyterian churches being permitted to have no Congregational ministers, and Congregational churches receiving freely Presbyterian ministers, and ministers having, very naturally, great influence in determining and changing the denominational relations of chuches, the Plan of Union became, by unfair administration, and was for years, just a Plan for turning Congregational churches into Presbyterian churches; and many are the churches, strong churches, in middle and western New

York, and eastern Ohio especially, once Congregational, which by that process are now Presbyterian. After suffering long from this unfair dealing, and after repeated and ineffectual remonstrances, the Congregationalists disused the Plan, forming and constituting no more mixed churches. Yet they retained its spirit. That is, they coöperated freely with Presbyterians in forming and supporting churches in small places, where but one church could be sustained, but making the church either Presbyterian or Congregational as the majority should decide. And this mode, which had become general at the time of the Albany Congregational Convention, that Convention approved and recommended, giving for it good and sufficient reasons. This is the history of that matter. And in review of it we will leave any candid reader to judge who are to be blamed for the disuse and abrogation of the Plan of Union.

Once more. It is said that the American Home Missionary Society has "cut off the New School Presbyterian churches in Missouri;" and therefore the Church Extension Committee, or some equivalent Presbyterian organization, is necessary to give those churches aid. The Extension Committee make this one of the four prominent arguments in their recent appeal for $30,000. They say: "The Assembly have committed specifically to the care of the Committee the churches in the state of Missouri who desire to continue in our ecclesiastical connection. The Assembly say: 'The fast increasing portion of its people in sympathy with the spirit of our Church, and accordant with its position in matters of controlling moment and interest, make the summons irresistible to help her." And (they further say, in italics) “it is literally true, that the question of the connection of the churches of Missouri with our Assembly, is simply the question whether this Committee can aid them or not."

The American Home Missionary Society did not "cut off the churches in Missouri." They cut themselves off. They themselves terminated their connection with the Society, and put it out of the Society's power to help them in consistency with its long established and just rules, by sundering the auxiliary relation of the Missouri Home Missionary Society. But it

is said the American Home Missionary Society compelled that withdrawal by its celebrated anti-slavery resolution or rule. Not so. For that resolution was not adopted or proposed till the year after the Missouri Society withdrew from the American Society. The American Society had at that time no rule on the subject of slavery which it had not always had and acted upon. It had uniformly refused to commission actual slaveholders as its missionaries. But even this rule the Missouri churches would not tolerate, either because they were proslavery in sentiment themselves, or because they dared not in that moderate degree stand up against the pro-slavery sentiment of the surrounding communities; and so they sundered their relation to the American Society. But it may be said that the American Society now has a rule which prevents the Missouri Society from resuming its auxiliary relation, and the churches within its bounds from receiving aid. The Society has no more preventive rule certainly than the General Assembly has, and the Church Extension Committee which is the Assembly's agent. What is the resolution or rule of the Society? Here it is, as adopted by the Executive Committee in 1857, and published in their report of that year. "That in the disbursement of the funds committed to their trust, the Committee will not grant aid to churches containing slaveholding members, unless evidence be furnished that the relation is such as, in the judg ment of the Committee, is justifiable for the time being, in the peculiar circumstances in which it exists."

Now, what is the rule of the General Assembly? In the year 1849, that body declared "(1.) That civil liberty is the right of man, as a rational and immortal being. (2.) That the institution of slavery, in the language of a former Assembly, is intrinsically an unrighteous and oppressive system, and injurious to the highest and best interests of all concerned in it. (3.) That it is the duty of all Christians, who enjoy the light of the present day, to use their honest, earnest, and unwearied endeavors, as speedily as possible, to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and, if possible, throughout the world. This General Assembly do most solemnly exhort all

under our care to perform this duty, and to be ever ready to make all necessary sacrifices in order to effect a consummation so much to be desired." In 1850, the General Assembly, in its meeting at Detroit, made the following Declaration: "The holding of our fellow-men in the condition of slavery, except in those cases where it is unavoidable, by the laws of the State, the obligations of guardianship, or the demands of humanity, is an offense in the proper import of that term, as used in the Book of Discipline, Chap. 1, Sec. 3, and should be regarded and treated in the same manner as other offenses." Respecting this action, Rev. Albert Barnes, who is now the Chairman of the Church Extension Committee, says, in his book on "The Church and Slavery:" "The great body of those who sustain the relation of slaveholders in the church are, according to the resolutions of the Assembly at Detroit, in such a condition as to make them liable to the charge of being guilty of an offense in the proper import of this term;' that is, in such a condition as to make them liable to discipline in the same way as in the case of any other 'offense' known to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church." "In the New School Presbyterian Church it is now a settled principle-so far as the acts of the Assembly go to establish that principle—that 'slaveholding' should be treated as an 'offense,' in the proper and technical sense of the term,—that is, as a relation subjecting a man to the discipline of the church,-unless he can show that in his case it is rendered necessary by the laws of the State, the obligations of guardianship, and (or) the demands of humanity." Or, as he says elsewhere, “A slaveholder is not primâ facie in good standing in the Presbyterian church. It is a case for him to make out; not for him to assume to be true." These rules of the General Assembly, which are law to the Extension Committee, the Assembly's Agent, are as high toned and stringent against slavery as the rule of the Home Missionary Society. What necessity, then, for the action, or the existence, of the Extension Committee in order to give aid to the slaveholding churches of Missouri, when, on the principles of the General Assembly, they cannot aid those churches any more, or on any other terms, than the

Home Missionary Society can? What will the Extension Committee do? They are in this dilemma. They must either ascertain, directly or indirectly, that the slaveholding, in the churches to be aided, is "rendered necessary by the laws of the State, the obligations of guardianship, or the demands of humanity," which is all the Home Missionary Society does; or they must give the aid without examining whether the slaveholding be of the exceptional or of the sinful kind-in which case they will violate the rules of the General Assembly, and make a practical and shocking renunciation of the anti-slavery principles and character of the New School Presbyterian Church; which may God forbid! Especially may God forbid that ALBERT BARNES should act as Chairman of a Committee to do this thing, after all that he has published to the world so justly, ably and bravely, as to the responsibility of the Church for the existence and continuance of slavery, and as to the high and firm anti-slavery ground which the Church, and all voluntary societies for the promotion of religion, should take and hold!

But we must close. We have transcended the limits we had assigned for this Article, for we have found the subject growing upon us as we advanced, and requiring attention at many points.

In conclusion, we would strenuously urge generous and Christian coöperation between these kindred denominations in the work of Home Missions. It is from an ardent desire for this that we have written. We lament that the close alliance and generous sympathy which has always existed between them, and which was increased by common trials in the days of the Old School persecution and consequent ecclesiastical division, should be impaired, as in some degree it unquestionably has been. We entreat our Presbyterian brethren, for their sakes as well as for the sake of Christian charity, not to persist in making and increasing the impression, which has been made by the Church Extension plan and measures, on Congregationalists emigrating to the West, that the New School Presbyterian Church is not what it once was in its sympathy with New England Congregationalists, and now instead