against the frauds or the violence of licentiousness. It is charged that by the authority of such masters, children are torn from the fathers and mothers to whom God gave them, and are sold as merchandise. I do not make these charges against the southern churches; nor do I take it for granted that these charges are all true. What I say is, that these charges are uttered by common fame "-are believed by millions-are carried abroad to the farthest outposts of civilization in every quarter of the world— have never been disproved-have never been met by those churches with anything like an adequate and authentic denial.

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In the existence of such facts there is, beyond controversy, an imperative occasion for the exercise of that right of inquiry and admonition on the part of other churches, which is inseparable from the idea of communion. If these charges, so widely published, and so widely believed, are not a sufficient reason for putting the churches of the slaveholding States upon their defence, nothing can be. The imputations against their Christianity are not less serious than if they were charged with tolerating in their communion the rationalism of Germany, the fooleries of Oxford, and the impostures of Rome and of Nauvoo. In some way they should be summoned, as churches, to answer for themselves whether these things are so. And if they refuse to meet the inquiry, or fail to vindicate themselves; or if, admitting that the matters of fact alleged against them are true, they do not repent under admonition, then the communion between those churches and the churches of the north and of the west must end.

The right of every northern ecclesiastical body to withdraw communion, in such a case, from the southern churches, would be too manifest to be questioned.

In what form, then, and by what course of procedure, may this right of inquiry and of ultimate non-communion be most advantageously exercised? On this point, it will be sufficient to advert to the established relations and formal correspondence between the southern churches of various denomina tions, and those churches in the free States with which they agree in the forms of doctrine and of worship.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian church exercises, by the terms of its constitution, a general superintendence over all the affiliated synods, presbyteries and congregations. Every subordinate judicatory is responsible to the assembled representatives of the whole communion, for all its errors or deficiencies in respect to the administration of discipline, and is, accordingly, liable to be admonished or instructed by the General Assembly. Such being the fact, can there be any doubt as to what the General Assembly-whether Annual or Triennial

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-can do, and ought to do, in reference to the 'fama clamosa' of which I have spoken? Let the General Assembly take notice of this crying fame' which so dishonors, not only the Presbyterian church as a great confederacy of Christian congregations, but also the name of Christ himself; and by that supreme judicatory let it be enjoined on all presbyteries and church sessions, to inquire whether any of the ministers or members under their care are guilty of the sins thus charged upon the Presbyterian

church, to visit such offenders with due censure wherever they may be found, and to report hereafter, at each General Assembly, whether such crimes are indeed tolerated or winked at within their respective jurisdictions. It is in the power of each synod in the free States, nay, of each presbytery or church session, to address the General Assembly with reference to so great a scandal, and to demand some decisive action for the removal of the reproach.

The Congregational bodies in New England, and in the other northern States, have no churches in the slaveholding States, and therefore are not directly implicated in these charges. Yet their ecclesiastical intercourse with the Presbyterians of the south is so intimate, that it could hardly be more so if the two denominations were fused into one. Church members and ministers pass from one communion to the other continually, as easily as they pass from one part of the country to another. As far as New England is concerned, the various Congregational organizations maintain communion with each of the two great divisions of the Presbyterian church by an interchange of delegates. Thus the Congregational body in each of these five States has a stipulated right to speak to the General Assembly in the same way in which one Congregational church, according to the Cambridge Platform, may speak to another. If then, at the approaching sessions of the General Assembly, that body-either of the two bodies bearing that name -shall neglect to take some efficient measures for the removal of the great scandal, which for some twenty years has been continually growing, till it

has become offensive to the moral sense of Christendom, it will remain for the New England Congregational Associations and Conventions, at their meetings immediately following, to take up the subject, and separately or jointly to expostulate with the General Assembly on its unchristian neglect of Christian discipline. Then, if at the end of another year such admonition shall not have been duly noticed-if the scandal remains untouched by the judicatory immediately responsible for it to the Christian world-if the one Assembly shall have been too much occupied with the scandal of young people's dancing, to attend to such a scandal as this -if the other Assembly shall have been so engrossed with the question whether the Rev. Mr. McQueen shall or shall not violate the law of North Carolina by putting away his wife, that it can do nothing towards refuting or removing the imputation which makes it responsible for innumerable acts of oppres sion-it will be for these Congregational bodies to take another step, and by a solemn act and declaration before the world, to dissolve all the existing relations of intercourse and correspondence with the General Assembly-which ever it may be-that has proved recreant. From that time forward, the way will be plain for every Congregational church in New England, to withhold all acts of communion from every southern church which does not distinctly clear itself from this scandal.

If, on the other hand, the General Assembly, or rather the two Assemblies, should take decisive measures in relation to the scandal of which I am speaking-if orders should go down from Philadelphia

next May, requiring all the presbyteries and church sessions south of Pennsylvania to take notice of certain specifications alleged by common fame against their administration of church discipline, and enjoining upon them an immediate and unshrinking attention to every instance in which a master does not render to his servants strictly, so far as his power over them extends, that which is just and equal-what would the result be in relation to those churches? Of course, it is impossible to foretell. The worst that could happen would be the immediate withdrawal of those presbyteries and congregations from all connection with the Presbyterian body. And if that event should come to pass, from such a cause, few would regret it; for such action on the part of those churches, in such circumstances, would be an unqestionable demonstration that the common fame of which I have spoken is true-too true to bear investigation. And what branch, I will not say of the Presbyterian church, but of the universal church of Christ, is that which would desire to retain in its connection congregations so defiled with the guilt of inhuman oppression, and so obstinately and passionately resolved upon cleaving to that iniquity? My own belief is that this would not be the result; that in certain districts of the south, the churches would rejoice in such an opportunity of defending themselves against the imputations under which they suffer; that in those churches the administration of discipline would be greatly invigorated; that on the other hand, such churches as proved contumacious, would be disgraced even in their own consciences and in the