lofty pretensions to be insisted on by a church so situated as is that in America, and at this time of day, is painfully ridiculous. What! of the twelve thousand ministers who have laboured for the re

generation of their country, and with eminent success, are the six hundred who have had the hand of the bishop on them, only to be deemed the true ministers of Christ? Are the ten thousand men who have been employed mainly in settling and sustaining the church in that land, to be denounced by an insignificant section of that church as falsely pretending to a character to which they have no lawful claim? Is there nothing in the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; nothing in the calling and approving testimony of a congregation of faithful men;' nothing in the undoubted testimony of Heaven itself? Must these holy and useful men, who, above all things, have sought the will of God; who have thought that they were acting under it; who would have trembled to commit themselves to such a ministry uncalled; and who have the seal of heaven on their

labours, in the renewal of thousands and myriads of men; be told that they have run unsent, have held their offices surreptitiously, and are worthy, not of praise, but condemnation? And by

whom?

"The only way in which this may be truly lamented, is as it affects that portion of the church which incorporates in its system such assumptions. It wars against the spirit of union, and interferes greatly with its efficiency and success. It prevents the exchange and intercommunity of services; it is hostile to fraternal charity, since brethren can hardly associate with pleasure except on equal ground; and it places, by its exclusiveness, the Episcopal portion of the church at disadvantage, in all the great and general movements of the times. Surely the intelligent and holy and liberal should look to this. Let them prefer Episcopal ordination if they will; but let them not condemn and unchurch those who think they have found a more excellent way. There must be something wrong in this. Dying men have often strong and vivid impressions of the right. Legh Richmond, in his last illness, said to a friend and pastor of a dissenting church, esteem you as a minister of Christ, and you regard me as such, and yet I cannot preach for you, and you cannot preach for me. My brother, there must be something wrong in this!"-Vol. ii. pp. 100-104.

I

Under the head religious econo

my much important information is conveyed, unfolding the working of the voluntary system, sustained and protected in all its operations, by the wise and just laws established by the State, laws which are so equally and impartially administered, that all ecclesiastical edifices, covenants, and endowments are secured, without the infringement of a single individual right or privilege.

On the tenure of ecclesiastical property, Dr. Reed observes—

"You are to understand, that there are two bodies that are recognized by the law as holding, and claiming to hold, such property. They are, the church and the parish; and they are both corporate bodies. The church is precisely what it is with us. The parish denoted place as well as persons; it now, by the legal changes that have been effected, denotes persons rather than place. The persons in this relation, who are deemed the parish, are the subscribers; and the term, therefore, is nearly synonymous with our term congregation, as distinguished from church. The church has the right to choose the minister; but the parish have a veto on the choice. Commonly, the majority of the parish will be in membership with the church, so that there is little danger of conflict of opinion, except in gross mischoice. The fittings and property with the edifice are considered to belong to the church; but the edifice itself is held by the parish as a corporation. The law knows not a church in its religious, but in its civil capacity; and the evidence of the existence of a civil corporation must, of course, be found in enrolment and subscriptions. Pewholders are deemed to have a separate right of property; and they can bring their action against the parish, if that property is injured. This provision is necessary, from the common practice of selling the pews as the means of meeting the first expenses of erection. What would be regarded as a fair sum is given for the purchase; and, afterwards, they bear a yearly rate, that is adequate to sustain the minister, and lesser charges.

"The law has been very different, as you will suppose, at different periods; and now it varies in the several States.

"I have endeavoured to express the spirit of the law; its form, under the modelling hand of time and circumstance,

will not be less liberal, and will become more simple. It is certainly a great improvement in legislation on this subject. The high advantage consists in making the church, or congregation of subscribers, a body corporate. This gives them a legal being; allows them to sue, and be sued; and to uphold all their civil rights with facility. It is at once a great security in the tenure of fixed property, and a discharge from an immense standing expense, on the renewal of trusts or trust-deeds. While other interests are justly looked to, this ought not to be neglected in our own country. The present state of the law, as it affects all the Dissenting bodies, is such, as not only to expose the property to serious hazard, but as to incur a charge on them of from £4000 to £5000 per annum, without benefit to any one."--Vol. ii. pp. 129--131. It is in this department of the work that Dr. Reed formally and at length enters upon the comparative claims and merits of the voluntary and compulsory systems. And here, where he is most invincible, he has been most violently assailed. But we tell his scurriious opponents, that all their foaming and fretting, their abuse and their slanders are utterly unavailing. The cause is gained. It triumphs, and the religious statistics of both countries, of England and America, have now established -and on the immoveable basis of fact and experience-what high church Tories have long foreboded and dreaded, and the palpable reality of which has, at last, driven thediviners mad."

It is very well for Fraser, the Christian Guardian, and half a dozen more intolerant journalists, to assure their readers, that Dr. Reed and his colleague are unworthy of credit-that they are "suborned witnesses"-" impostors" and "partizans," morally incapable of giving their evidence. But the public mind is not to be imposed upon by such violations of the courtesies of life; and such exhibitions of coarse and ill-bred vulgarity can be acceptable to those

only who feel that they have nothing else to depend upon. Though tortured, garbled, and twisted with all the ingenuity of despair, the statistics of the Deputation are unimpeached and unimpeachable. There they stand corroborated, even by hostile testimony. Fraser may gnash his teeth, but his own pages present that corroboration. It is somewhat amusing to observe, the feverish earnestness which this writer betrays when the evidence which he strives to evade and neutralize, is too strong for him. Dr. Reed is not to be believed, because he wrote the case of the Dissenters; that is, he that best understands the subject on which he writes, and who has seen the working of the two systems, and is thoroughly acquainted with their distinguishing principles, is just the last man who is to take up his pen in the controversy between them.

Then we are told, that "this reckless asseverator," if he had expected any faith to be put in his averments, ought to have " procured and published the signed and dated testimony of the most eminent ministers of the various denominations in the United States?" Why has he not produced the special opinions of such men as Dr. Cox, Dr. Beecher, Dr. Spring, Bishop White, and Bishop M'Ilvaine?"

This appears plausible enough, and by the Socratic mode of putting it, the reader, no doubt, imagines that nothing like this course was adopted. But the truth is, that the majority of the individuals named gave this required testimony. It is on record in their parting address to the Deputation, and the resolution which they passed on that occasion; and we have likewise to add a fact, for which we pledge ourselves-that Dr. Spring had prepared a tion, embodying the strongest

mo

testimony in favour of the volutary, as opposed to the compulsory, system, and which would have been unanimously carried, had not Dr. Reed requested that it might be waved, as the passing such a resolution, at such a season, might be misrepresented by the enemies of the good cause in England. Yet, supposing that all the pastors of all the American churches had concurred in the wish of the reviewer, and had signed their adherence to the voluntary system, would this have satisfied him? No such thing. For by this they would only have exposed themselves to contempt for flattering their nig. gardly people, and evincing their love of country at the expense of their love of truth;"* nay, if the testimony of the United States in Congress had been solemnly ten dered to this episcopal Didymus, he would have rejected it. For he gives three long reasons, elaborated through as many double pages, why such testimony should be repudiated.

The principal artifice by which this antivoluntary scribe jesuitically supports his compulsory system, is keeping out of sight the real question as between the two, and representing that to be the establishment principle, which, in fact, has nothing to do with it. Thus he maintains, that in spite of the incontrovertible facts which are adduced to prove, that all the ecclesiastical and religious institutions of America are based on the voluntary principle, that many of them are wisely established and protected by law; and that, therefore, their system is legislative and not voluntary." There may be dupes, whose perverted understanding can even admit au assumption like this to be excellent logic;

Fraser's Magazine for October, 1835,

page 464.

but it may be as well to show what is inconsistent with the voluntary principle and what is not; and also to point out the true nature and character of the compulsory principle. The voluntary principle does not allow the State to decide on matters of faith and practice, to compile, or order to be compiled, certain articles of doctrine and formularies of worship, and to enjoin the belief and observance of them, under civil penalties; to single out a particular sect, and distinguish it by exclusive privileges, and lay a whole country under compulsory contribution, to support that sect in worldly splendour, while it places a brand and stigma on all who prefer an adherence to the convictions of their own conscience in matters of religion. All this is directly opposed to the genius and spirit of Christianity, of which the voluntary principle is the body and the soul.

But this principle does not interfere with the duty of civil rulers on the subject of protecting, supporting, and defending religion. It not only allows, but maintains, that, so far as outward decorum is concerned, it is the indispensable duty of the legislature to exercise its authority, that those who are truly desirous of worshipping God according to the public ordinances of the sanctuary, and in a manner agreeable to the dictates of their own consciences, may in no respect be impeded by the irregular and irreligious conduct of others, either by the intolerance of the bigotted, or the malevolence of the profane; in short, that it is right and meet, and the paramount and peremptory duty of every government to support and defend, by all scriptural means, the religion of Jesus Christ. The late Mr. Coleridge, in spite of all his Tory and high church prejudices in his con

stitution of church and state, has hit upon the right principle, which is as philosophically true as it is scripturally just. "It is," says he, "a fundamental principle of all legislation, that the state shall leave the largest portion of personal free agency to each of its citizens that is compatible with the free agency of all, and not subversive of the ends of its own existence as a state. And though a negative, it is a most important distinctive character of the Church of Christ, that she asks nothing for her members as Christians which they are not strictly entitled to demand as citizens and subjects. The Church of Christ asks of the state neither wages nor dignities; she asks only protection, and to be let alone.”

To all this the compulsory principle is essentially opposed. It It compels the state and the nation to bow to its infallibility. Its most legitimate organ and instrument is the Inquisition. It makes the dogmas and orders-the worship and ritual of one sect--to be the entire whole of Christianity, and binds itself to suppress every thing in religion that differs from it, on whatever plea that difference may be urged and justified. If any where it does less than this, it is because its progress is arrested by an antagonist compulsion-the compulsion of reason, of humanity, and justicethese have conquered it in America, and will, ere long, triumph over it in Europe. The only fragment of its existence in the United States, and it is a plague-spot and a curse upon their policy, and their religion too, is quoted by Fraser, "By the law of the state no coloured persons are permitted to assemble for worship, unless a white person be present and preside."

The Book of the Denominations, page 408, quoted from the Eclectic

Review.

Already have we far, very far, exceeded our limits in our notice of these volumes; we must, therefore, refer our readers for their further contents, to the work itself, only remarking, that the religious societies, collegiate schools, female academies, and common schools, display the expansive power and beneficent influence of the principle for which we are contending. Of the temperance societies, which are but of yesterday, and the obvious changes for the better which they have wrought in the morals and habits of the people, we greatly approve; at the same time we confess we are a little alarmed at the extravagant lengths to which some of its advocates are carrying the principle of abstinence. Can it be that grave and reverend Divines are keenly agitating the question, whether wine is to be continued as a beverage, and whether coffee and tea are not to be superseded by the simple element of water; and that churches and pastors are waging a fierce and unnatural war on the subject of the kind of liquid which is to be used in the administration of the Lord's Supper? Wearied in the conflict, we would direct the gasping combatants to the 104th psalm, the eleventh and the fifteenth verses. We are glad that this mania is likely to be abated. Sober and moderate men are already lifting up their voice against it, and in a tone not to inflame, but to soothe. "We are running," says Mr. Stone, "into extremes upon almost every thing we undertake. In the impetuosity of this excess of zeal, we grieve to say, the sacred cause of temperance bids fair to be arrested in its progress, if not ruined, by the indiscretions and the fanaticism of its friends. was in the view of this spirit of ultraism that one of the distinguished orators, at the recent religious an

It

niversaries, shrewdly remarked, that often, when a good cause has been begun, if the devil finds there is no other way to ruin it, he will turn charioteer himself."

American slavery is the worst abomination of the whole country. The treatment of these slaves by these strenuous advocates of the equality of human rights is worthy of the darkness and despotism of the Pagan nations of antiquity. What strange consciences some professing Christians have they cannot swallow a glass of wine for conscience sake, and yet they can rivet the chain on the neck of the slave, and refuse to let the oppressed go free; nay, they can go even further than this. Their own free-born subjects, because they are men of colour, the illegitimate, yet better part of themselves, are to be forced, by every species of cruelty and persecution, to seek an asylum in a foreign land, where they are for the most part doomed to the greatest hardship and perils; and this christianized America dignifies with the holy name of charity.

COLONIZATION -LIBERIASLAVERY LYNCH LAW. These are words that should turn every American pale till the evils they severally and unitedly imply are for ever redressed. We intended to say a great deal on this subject, but for the present forbear, contenting ourselves by quoting Dr. Reed's concluding paragraph on this disgusting topic, and another intimately connected with it in guilt and atrocity :

"Yes, the slave must go free! Slavery now has a legal existence only in America. But America is the very place, of all others, where it cannot, must not, be tolerated. With her Declaration of Rights, with her love of liberty, with her sense of religion, with her professed deference for man as man, and with the example of the old world against her

which she has forsaken from its defective sense of freedom-to uphold slavery would be an act of such supreme iniquity, as, beside it, would make all common vice seem to brighten into virtue. Much evil may be; but this cannot be! What, slavery in the last home of liberty! The vilest despotism in the presence of boasted equality! The deepest oppression of man, where the rights of man are professedly most honoured! No, this cannot continue. Slavery and Liberty cannot exist together; either slavery must die, or liberty must die. Even now, the existence of slavery is a viola

tion of the Constitution of America; and

so long as slavery remains, it exists in

letter and not in fact!

"The eyes of the world are now fixed on America. She will act worthy of herself, her high professions, and her distinguished privileges. She will show that the evil by which she suffers has been inflicted, and not adopted. She will repudiate it without delay; only asking the time and the means, which may secure to all parties the greatest good with the least evil. And kindred nations, and oppressed man, shall look on her from afar with admiration and delight, as to the new world of promise wherein dwelleth righteousness!"

"Besides this, there is another field of philanthropic service open to America. It is that of seeking the welfare of the aborigines of the country. They are far less thought of, at the present moment, than the oppressed African; but their claims are not inferior, nor scarcely are their wrongs. They amount to about five hundred thousand persons. They have the highest claim to the soil. It has been United States; and America, by conciliaallowed as such both by Britain and the tion and justice, might confer the greatest good on these interesting people; and all the good done to them, would be so much benefit brought to herself.

"Yet no people have suffered more. Advantage has been taken of their ignorance and generous confidence, at various times, in every possible way. While the their claims; as he gathered force, he invader has been weak, he has allowed

doubted them; and when he was confident in his strength, he practically denied them. Very recently, some flagrant instances of oppression and plunder, under the form and sanction of law, have occurred; and it was only at the eleventh hour, that the Supreme Court of the States, by a signal act of justice, reversed the acts of local government and of Congress too, and saved the nation from being committed to deeds which must