which they were referred to a committee. The question of adopting or rejecting them was never put. The only amendment "rejected," was Mr. Phelps' second amendment. So far as any "anti-slavery sentiments expressed by such men as Messrs. Bacon, Hawes, Beecher, Stowe, Dwight, &c.," were 'summarily expressed' in my resolutions, they are all expressed, as I have shown, not indeed more summarily, but more fully, and with even more of a technically anti-slavery tone, in the report adopted by the Board. I am far from imputing to Mr. Phelps any intentional misrepresentation. I only suppose, that in the singleness of his devotion to the cause of his society, he did not examine, so carefully as he should have examined, the facts that lay in the printed documents before him.

Secondly, Is it not plain that those who would have been "satisfied" with the adoption of the resolutions proposed by me, ought to be satisfied, if they are reasonable men, with the report as it stands? Is it not plain that, in lending their voices to a clamor against the Board, as if those resolutions contained something which the report, as adopted, does not contain, they will put themselves into a position in which they must appear very much like tools in the hands of other men? Those men who would have been thus "satisfied," will find a much better guide in their own instinctive common sense, and their love of substantial and practicable usefulness, than in the transcendental formulæ of the Anti-Slavery Society, or the movements of its Executive Committee.

NO. III.

WHAT HAS CHURCH GOVERNMENT TO DO WITH SLAVERY?— WHAT IS SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES?

Immediately after the publication of the first of these articles, I received a friendly letter from Mr. Phelps, representing that I omit all notice of what he deems an important qualification of his position. An extract from his letter, and a brief explanation of my views in regard to it, may serve as an introduction to what I propose to say on another part of the general subject:

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My position, then, allow me to say, is just this, that the mere fact of slaveholding, in the same way and in the same sense, as the mere fact of drunkenness, falsehood, or gaming, is (1) to constitute the ground and occasion for instruction, public or private, or both, against it; (2) that such instruction resisted, and the thing persevered in, are to be the ground and occasion for admonition, or the commencement in some way of religious discipline; and (3) that instruction and admonition both resisted, and the thing still persevered in, are to constitute the ground and occasion for excommunication. This I hold to be the general rule, admitting possibly of exceptions, but of none save such as could be admitted in regard to the other cases named, and on the same proof or grounds as in respect to them. And this I hold not on the alone ground of the sinfulness of slaveholding in all cases (though I believe that), but on the broader, and what might be the common, ground of all parties, that it is justly, in this day, an occasion of reproach and an appearance of evil from which every follower of Christ is bound, at all hazards, to abstain-in other words, that if not sinful in itself, it is, to quote the Presb. Book of Discipline, something in the principles or practice' of a man, fitted to tempt others to sin, and mar their spiritual edification'-not, in a word, walking orderly.

The point, however, to which I wish particularly to call your attention, is that of instruction and admonition previous to excommunication-making the final excision not for the mere fact itself, but for the fact persevered in against such instruction and admonition. In this view, the mere fact is not excision. It only raises the question of character and becomes the occasion and ground for instruction. It puts the man on the proof of his character. That is all. If he can prove his case an exception to the general rule, very well; then, just as in the other cases, let him stand in the church, not according to the rule, but a confessed, and everywhere understood, exception to it."

Mr. Phelps assures me that he regards this " qualification of his position," for so he calls it, as "very important." But I must confess it does not strike me as affecting at all the position which he and the Anti-Slavery Society are understood to hold. If anybody had imputed to Mr. Phelps and his colleagues an intention of "exscinding" all slaveholders from the church, in violation of all the rules and forms of church discipline, as an accidental majority in the Presbyterian Assembly of 1837 "exscinded" some 60,000 church members in Western New York and Northern Ohio-then this qualification of his position would have been important. In reference to the actual question, the "qualification" is altogether irrelevant. The question is not whether the master of a slave shall have the privilege of being instructed and admonished, privately, and by the church, (according to Christ's precept, Matt. xviii. 15-17,) before the final sentence of excommunication; but whether the admonition shall be for the mere fact that he sustains the relation of a master, or for the very different fact that in the exercise of the power which that relation confers upon him he

has been guilty of some specific injustice toward the slave. Mr. Phelps' position is, that the relation itself is the crime-that the man is to be admonished for having the power to do wrong—that if, under admonition, he does not repent and "bring forth fruits meet for repentance," by immediately abdicating that power "at all hazards," he is to be excommunicated. The only exceptions to this rule which he would admit, are such exceptions as would be admitted in regard to drunkenness, falsehood and gaming. In other words, there is to be no exception ; for that Mr. Phelps can imagine a case in which a drunkard, a liar, or a gamester, who refuses to repent and reform after due instruction and admonition, ought not to be excommunicated, is what my respect for him will not permit me to believe.

To prevent any misunderstanding it seems proper to say expressly, that Mr. Phelps' letter was written with no view to publication, and with no intention of engaging in a reply to these articles of mine. I have made this quotation-not without first asking and obtaining his permission—because I knew not in what other way I could so properly render what he regards as justice to him. I have added the explanation of my own views because it seemed no more than justice to myself.

Dismissing, then, this mutual explanation between Mr. Phelps and myself, I proceed to consider more distinctly the general question which has come up between the Anti-Slavery Society and the Board of Missions, and which is urged as a practical question upon all the churches in the United States. What is the natural and legitimate action of Christianity

against slavery? What should be done on this subject by the churches, administering and applying the principles of Christianity to determine the question of the visible Christian character of individuals claiming recognition of Christ's followers? In other words: What has church government to do with slavery?

Let us take this question as it actually arises in the United States. Let us look at "slavery as it is" in our own country, where after all we have far more to do with it than we have to do with slavery in any other country. It may be presumed that when we have answered the question in relation to our own country, so as to be sure that our answer rests upon the right principles, it will be easy enough to answer the same question in regard to any other country.

In fifteen of the twenty-eight States of this Union, there exists in the structure of society a certain artificial relation between man and man, a relation of power on the one hand and of dependence and subjection on the other, which is the subject matter of our present inquiry. The population of those States is divided into two great classes, the free and the enslaved, with a smaller intermediate class which, under the established policy of most of those States, is rapidly diminishing. The free are those of unmixed European blood, or of what passes for such. The enslaved are of another race; the great majority being of pure African descent, and those of mixed blood being counted with their African kindred. A few of the enslaved race have acquired an imperfect and precarious freedom hedged in with various dis