denounced on the wandering Jew,—"Thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life." Then all the world went one way,—all the wealth, all the power, all the fashion. Now, if ever, was a time for Christ's church to stand up and speak for the poor.
The General Assembly met. She was earnestly memorialized to speak out. Never was a more glorious opportunity to show that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world. A protest then, from a body so numerous and respectable, might have saved the American church from the disgrace it now wears in the eyes of all nations. that she had once spoken! What said the Presbyterian Church? She said nothing, and the thanks of political leaders were accorded to her. She had done all they desired.
Meanwhile, under this course of things, the number of presbyteries in slave-holding states had increased from three to twenty! and this church has now under its care from fifteen to twenty thousand members in slave states.
So much for the course of a decided anti-slavery body in union with a few slave-holding churches. So much for a most discreet, judicious, charitable, and brotherly attempt to test by experience the question. What communion hath light with darkness, and what concord hath Christ with Belial? The slave-system is darkness,—the slave-system is Belial! and every attempt to harmonize it with the profession of Christianity will be just like these. Let it be here recorded, however, that a small body of the most determined opponents of slavery in the Presbyterian Church seceded and formed the Free Presbyterian Church, whose terms of communion are, an entire withdrawal from slave-holding. Whether this principle be a correct one, or not, it is worthy of remark that it was adopted and carried out by the Quakers,—the only body of Christians involved in this evil who have ever succeeded in freeing themselves from it.
Whether church discipline and censure is an appropriate medium for correcting such immoralities and heresies in individuals, or not, it is enough for the case that this has been the established opinion and practice of the Presbyterian Church.
If the argument of Charles Sumner be contemplated, it will be seen that the history of this Presbyterian Church and the history of our United States have strong points of similarity. In both, at the outset, the strong influence was anti-slavery, even among slave-holders. In both there was no difference of opinion as to the desirableness of abolishing slavery ultimately; both made a concession, the smallest which could possibly be imagined; both made the concession in all good faith, contemplating the speedy removal and extinction of the evil: and the history of both is alike. The little point of concession spread, and absorbed, and acquired, from year to year, till the, United States and the Presbyterian Church stand just where they do. Worse has been the history of the Methodist Church. The history of the Baptist Church shows the same principle; and, as to the Episcopal Church, it has never done anything but comply, either North or South. It differs from all the rest in that it has never had any resisting element, except now and then a protestant, like William Jay, a worthy son of him who signed the Declaration of Independence.
The slave power has been a united, consistent, steady, uncompromising principle. The resisting element has been, for many years, wavering, self-contradictory, compromising. There has been, it is true, a deep, and ever increasing hostility to slavery in a decided majority of ministers and church-members in free states, taken as individuals. Nevertheless, the sincere opponents of slavery have been unhappily divided among themselves as to principles and measures, the extreme principles and measures of some causing a hurtful reaction in others. Besides this, other great plans of benevolence have occupied their time and attention; and the result has been that they have formed altogether inadequate conceptions of the extent to which the cause of God on earth is imperilled by American slavery, and of the duty of Christians in such a crisis. They have never had such a conviction as has aroused, and called out, and united their energies, on this, as on other great causes. Meantime, great organic influences in church and state are, much against their wishes, neutralizing their influence against slavery,—sometimes even arraying it in its favor. The perfect inflexibility of the slave-system, and its absolute refusal to allow any discussion of the subject, has reduced all those who wish to have religious action in common with slave-holding churches to the alternative of either giving up the support of the South for that object, or giving up their protest against slavery.
This has held out a strong temptation to
