a separate ecclesiastical convention under the provisional plan aforesaid and upon the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. . . . So that all that the old Discipline had against slavery was retained in the new; and the difference between the Churches in regard to slavery was simply this: That the Northern body regarded it as a sin in itself, to be proceeded against under all circumstances by Church action; and the Southern body considered it an evil, but not necessarily a sin, when State laws would not allow emancipation to take place or the emancipated slave to have liberty.... The North condemned the bishop (Andrew) and the South stood by him, but both held that slavery was an evil.

This writer reiterates the statement that both Churches alike considered slavery an evil. But, in certain environments, created by State laws, slavery was not a sin in the estimation of the Southern Church. Truly, this presents a strange thing; an evil ceasing to be an evil because the State law says the evil shall not be put away!

And it would be a sin for the Church to make any protest against such laws. Slavery, per se, one thing, and slavery in operation another thing, is absurd. One might as well say that a locomotive, per se, never jumped from the track or pulled a train of cars through a draw-bridge. But a locomotive with steam up and fire burning, and a man holding the lever operating it, is a great destroyer of property and life where flaws exist in roadway or fault in engineer. There was too much power in slavery to operate it among men without damage to all parties concerned. If there has been created one race of men to be masters and another to be slaves in order that both races shall reach their highest possible attainments in this relation, they have not come together yet in their proper relation in this world. Dr. Anderson says it was not a difference about slavery that caused the separation. He should read the first Discipline of his Church. Chapter I, section 2, gives the causes as follows:

In the judgment of the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in the slave-holding States the continued agitation of the subject of slavery and abolition in a portion of the Church, the frequent action on that subject in the General Conference, and especially the proceedings of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 in the case of the Rev. James 0. Andrew, D.D., one of the bishops, who had become connected with slavery by marriage, produced a state of things in the South which rendered a continuance of the jurisdiction of that General

Conference over the Conferences aforesaid inconsistent with the success of the ministry in their proper calling. This conviction they declared in solemn form to the General Conference, accompanied with a protest against the action referred to, assured that public opinion in the slave-holding States would demand, and a due regard to the vital interests of Christ's kingdom would justify, a separate and independent organization.

The foregoing clearly states that the cause was the "agitation upon the subject of slavery." Dr. Anderson ignores all this in his tract. How the Church South regarded the protests against slavery in their Discipline was fully set forth by their bishops, who were directed by the General Conference in 1858 to set forth the platform occupied by the Church. This epis copal address stated that when the Church was organized

we found the Discipline still encumbered with the rule and section on slavery, the testimony was decided though gratuitous, but the legislation in reference to it contradictory and absurd. The section was anomalous. While denouncing slavery as an evil, and pledging the Church to such view, it provided by statute for its allowance and perpetuation. Four years ago we annihilated the chapter and rid the book of its self-condemning enactments on the subject.

So, by their own interpretation, the disciplinary legislation was contradictory upon the subject. That which declares a contradiction declares nothing-or an "absurdity." It did not, therefore, commit the Church to any position on the subject of slavery. And upon this understanding the chapter was taken at the beginning and permitted to "encumber" their Discipline for a short time. The promise that this chapter should be retained in their Discipline was one of the means by which the churches in Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia were induced to go into the new organization.

Here is the chapter as it appeared in the first Discipline of the Southern Church (1846, section 9). "OF SLAVERY."

Question. What shall be done for the extirpation of slavery? Answer 1. We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery; and, therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter, where the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom.

2. When any traveling preacher becomes an owner of a slave or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit his ministerial character

in our Church, unless he execute, if it be practicable, a legal emancipation of such slaves conformably to the laws of the State in which he lives.

3. All our preachers shall prudently enforce upon our members the necessity of teaching their slaves to read the word of God, and to allow them time to attend upon the public worship of God on regular days of divine service.

4. Our colored preachers and official members shall have all the privileges which are usual to others in the Quarterly Conferences, where the usages of the country do not forbid it, and the presiding elder may hold for them a separate District Conference where the number of colored local preachers will justify it.

5. The Annual Conference may employ colored preachers to travel and preach where their services are judged necessary; provided no one shall be so employed without having been recommended according to the form of Discipline.

While this chapter was made null and void by State laws which made it crime to teach a slave to read, and which did not allow emancipated slaves to remain in the State, yet, on its face, it was a protest against slavery, and showed the Southern Church to regard slavery as an evil. But the "agitation of the slavery question," given by their bishops as one of the causes of the separation, was the placing of this very language in the Discipline by the General Conference. This chapter, which committed the Church to no position on the slavery question, according to their own interpretation, did serve to conceal the real cause of the separation. It is now used by Dr. Anderson and others to prove that both Churches alike regarded slavery as an evil in 1845. The real feeling and conviction of the Southern Church were expressed by the action of 1854, which "annihilated" it. Nobody believes or pretends that any change of sentiment had occurred when this was done. The chapter had served its purpose, and was disposed of about as quickly as the circumstances of the case permitted. It was not done at their second General Conference. That Conference was hurried to an early adjournment by cholera breaking out in St. Louis; but in 1854 the whole ninth section was repealed. The Rev. J. G. Bruce, now a superannuated member of our Kentucky Conference, alone voted in the negative. The following is from a letter to the writer from him, written in November, 1888:

The General Rule was spared, a monument to the humanity of our fathers! But the progress of liberal sentiment was so rapid that the General Conference of 1858 was ready to forget all past 3-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VI.

deliverances, ignore the constitution, and strike it from the Discipline. The question of striking it out had, by the General Conference of 1854, been submitted to the Annual Conferences. A committee, appointed in 1858 to ascertain the state of the vote, reported that the constitutional majority had been obtained. Having myself examined the records, I offered as a substitute: That the constitutional majority had not been obtained. Some of the Conferences had refused to vote; some of the journals were not present to be examined, etc. This brought on a three days' fight, and resulted in referring it again to the Annual Conferences, the vote to be taken at the next ensuing sessions, so that the new Discipline might be without spot or blemish. Before the next meeting of the General Conference* the year of release came, and the slave went free.

In the same resolution, providing for the aforesaid action, the General Conference requested the bishops to set forth, in a pastoral address, the platform occupied by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, on the relation of master and servants, agreeably to the principle contained in the preamble and resolution. The following are some of the utterances of that address:

The question of slavery has long agitated the Church and the country. The Southern Church, while yet in connection with the North, avowed her conviction that the subject belonged to Cæsar, and that ecclesiastical legislation upon it is contrary to the teachings of Christ and the example of the apostles. Her counsels were unheeded, her remonstrances disregarded, and the unfortunate policy which at first obtruded the subject into the legislation of the Church maintained it there, notwithstanding history accumulated evidence amounting to demonstration that its continuance was the occasion of strife and trouble, alienation and discord. Its simple presence in our book of laws, while the Methodist Episcopal Church in this great country was a unit, was a pretext which fanaticism employed during long years to insult our feelings, and, in the memorable Conference of 1844, to outrage our rights. When the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, under the authority of the General Conference, and with the consent and approval of our people, organized a separate and independent jurisdiction, we found the Discipline still encumbered with the rule and section on slavery.

There is something very remarkable in the foregoing. It was a convention in Louisville that organized the Church South. But here we have the absurdity of a Church before *There was no session in 1862. New Orleans, where the General Conference was to meet, was occupied by the Federal army.

it had an existence spoken of as "organizing," not itself, but a "jurisdiction!" One cannot refrain from asking, What is an organized jurisdiction? The portion of this remarkable address which declared the legislation of the chapter to be "absurd and contradictory" has already been quoted. In that address it is clearly set forth that the Church, as such, ought not to declare slavery to be an evil. There is an avoidance of the alternative; the Church does not undertake to say that slavery is not an evil. "We have surrendered unto Cæsar the things that are Caesar's." The State alone is responsible for the institution of slavery, and, ex cathedra, nothing must be said of it, good or bad. Yet we are reminded that "the relation of master and servant is recognized in the New Testament, and the duties of each prescribed."

Standing upon this "platform" the Church, South, through her papers, has not ceased to denounce the Methodist Episcopal Church as secularizing the Church, making an alliance of Church and State, and departing from the teachings of Christ and the example of the apostles, because her Conferences have made deliverances upon the acts of States and the Nation where great moral questions have been involved. It was also stated in the address that "the salvation of the colored race in our midst, as far as human instrumentality can secure it, is the primary duty of the Southern Church." As a commentary upon that passage the action of the Southern Church since the slave was freed may be fairly taken. When the way was opened for doing ten times more for the moral elevation of the Negro than could have been done for him as a slave, that Church not only failed to increase her labors in his behalf but almost entirely abandoned it, while she "enlarged her missionary work in other directions."

But the real sentiment of the Church upon slavery was most clearly set forth by Rev. R. H. Rivers, D. D., one of their ministers, in a work on moral philosophy which was published by their Book Concern, which is studied in the schools patronized by the Church, and used as a text-book in their ministers' course of study. The author gave as a reason for the book that

for many years the institutions of learning have been without a suitable text-book on moral philosophy. Most of the philosophical writings of American authors are exhibitions of fanaticism rather