turally and wholly disconnected, and left to settle all its affairs upon a basis of moral fitness and spiritual fellowship. If so, we would like to know why a brother twenty years old, in good moral standing, should be deemed too immature to vote on any question left to the determination of a popular vote? What reason is there why a man should be deemed a minor in his church relations, until the law of the land makes him a freeman in the church? But these reflections and inquiries are leading us away from the proper objects of this article. They are, first, to allege that the P. Methodist movement was to evade the application of Episcopal power in the itinerant system of preaching the gospel; and then, secondly, to establish an itinerancy with provisoes enough, in the fundamental law of the church, to give to each preacher in the concern, the right to object to his appointment, and if necessary, appeal to the annual conference to overrule for him the appointing power. That this new system of itinerancy has not acquitted itself as well as the old one, we opine, has been felt and acknowledged by some of its once warmest friends and strongest advocates. And if in contrast with our system of Episcopal Methodism, the result is in our favor, as many are well satisfied it is, then we inquire, Wherein is the evil? The evil has not been charged upon the want of talent or piety, neither upon the want of men. As far as the system is in fault, the evil is obliged to be traced to the want of inherent momentum; and the deficiency here to the too large impregnation of the economy with the popular element of human liberty. We defy all men to assign for it any other cause, unless he finds it in a worse reason. And let it be especially remembered, that in contrasting policies and practical measures, the true settlement of theoretical questions is of easy ascertainment. Our cardinal rule, in this department of moral philosophy, is, that whatever works best, is best. This truth, in itself, applies equally well to physics, or morals. is with moral appliances, and their results. But our business This new system of church polity, entered the field of itinerancy, as a competi tor with the old economy, claiming for itself, the decided advantage of a better adjusted scheme of governmental springs and balances. And now we ask in kindness, has its success demonstrated its better adaptation to the work of an itinerant ministry? Has not the comparative success of the two economies been very decidedly in favor of the old Episcopal system? Our Protestant Methodist friends left us clothed with every prestige of Methodism, which they conceived had acted as a charm in her warfare, and washed by her new baptism, from all her monarchical and anti-republican freckles, with a face shining bright with the lustre of civil guarantees, transferred, with all due care, to the ecclesiastical code, so as to afford every man a good chance to protect his personal rights against all ecclesiastical tyrannies. For let it be always remembered, that the secession was not on doctrinal, but economical dislikes. The doctrines preached by the Wesleyans, in contradistinction from the old doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation; man's free agency; the conditionality of religion, with the great and precious truth, that Christ died equally for all our race, which like a morning star, has glowed in the firmament of Wesleyan divinity from its first announcements; these rational, and scriptural doctrines, delivered as they were, by men full of love to God and man, did much. Yea, did everything to plant Methodism, in the soil of the public mind, to such an extent, that all over these lands, there are thousands of Methodists in doctrine, who will not submit to the general rules of our church. But our Protestant brethren took the full benefit of all these doctrines along with them. still retain them, cherish and defend them with great manfulness. And yet, in no state in the union, can they push on their phase of Methodism, as well as the old Episcopal system is getting on. The discount on it, is more than seventy-five per cent. They Now if its comparative success is not lessened by the maintainance of anti-Methodistic doctrines in its divinity depart ment; nor in the want of a talented and pious ministry, then we allege, that the deficiency must be sought for in its economical machinery. And here, in our opinion, is its radical defect. The framers of this new Methodistic organization, alarmed at the plethory of power, which they overrated in the repudiated economy, depleted it to such an extent as to reduce it below the vitalizing energy. And like a heart, the power of which is too feeble to propel the circulating medium of animal life through all its needful ramifications, there is a hurtful stagnation in the executive energy. We modestly plead the probability, nay, even declared the certainty of this evil, at the time of the organization; its inability to carry on an effective itinerant ministry, with us, is no matter of surprise. The whole economy of God's grace is based upon his sovereign right and power. The qualified and cheerful obedience to all his ecclesiastical ordinances and high behests, constitute and fully meet the tariff of ministerial duties enjoined by Christ. Modify and embarrass this schedule, by the introduction of self-preserving and self-accommodating securities, and sure as Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and certain as self-denial and self-sacrifice are paramount obligations on Christians, and especially on Christian ministers, you will neutralize and impair the vital element in church economics, the right of God to control. Therefore we hold it as indisputably certain, that, in the same proportion, that any church introduces into her polity, the popular securities for personal rights and elective chances; rules by which her members and ministers may avert the direct demands of God's word upon them by church resolutions and votes, they take the church into their own hands, and God judicially withdraws. There may be much that is good; many souls may be saved by them; but when you come to look for the heaven acknowledged proofs of a divine agency, which are still found in the appliances that depreciate the wisdom of this world, and exalt the wisdom of God, you will always find the system marked with the signs of a strange decay. The long duration and unparalleled success of the Methodist Episcopal Church in her itin erant system of preaching, in so far as organic life and energy are concerned, are attributable to the sanctified existence and sanctified use of Episcopal authority, in the appointment of the preachers to their various charges. Turn over this work to the conference, to be effected by mutual agreement, and it would convert the government into contemptible ecclesiastical democracy; a hot bed of religious intrigue. Turn it over to a committee to be elected by the conference, and you change the conference from a body of loving brethren, all upon a footing, waiting quietly each for his next year's appointment, into an arena for electioneering strife, of a very corrupting origin and of a very hurtful tendency. But all these pernicious elements, which are only sown in minds educated to hate every thing like concentrated power, where anything like governmental energy is concerned are excluded, by placing in the hands of the presiding bishop, the sole responsibility of working the preachers of that conference district, to the best advantage, for the church of Jesus Christ. No power, less than that which is lodged in the hands of our bishops, can carry on an effective, harmonious, travelling, changeable ministry. And no other form of power will do for it but Episcopal. The Protestant Methodist Church set out with a high appreciation of the incomparable value of itinerancy. They accordingly retained it. But having tried in vain, for many years, to reduce the Episcopal power to a shadow, by placing over it an appellant court, living only by the popular breath of its annual creators, they left and dismissed, at one vote, and forever, all that was Episcopal in order, office, power, or duration. Resorting to the issues of the ballot box, every year, for a president, and cutting him down to little more than a mere chairman, the increasing tendency in this organization, must and will be towards ultimate congregationalism. And this, not because the original framers desired and intended any such event, but because an itinerant ministry cannot be carried on successfully without the amount of power, once denounced by them, and which they will not return to nor adopt. And the feeling which will only work now, where all is pleasant and convenient, will not be hard to adopt the modification of congregational Methodism. Itinerancy is a very peculiar polity. It can only live and do well amidst hardships and self-denials of the most marked character. Feed it only for a short time, upon the milk of self-indulgence, and it becomes a pet, hard to be pleased, and will begin to barter for berths. But we plant ourself, finally, on the ground, that, after all the objections, urged against our system of itinerant preaching, by other forms of ministerial appliances, have been engrossed and deducted, it has been, by all classes of men, conceded, that for efficiency, for universal application, for certainty of bringing the gospel to every state and condition of human society, it stands unequalled. Hence, we claim for it a more decided agreement with the great commission, left with Christ's ministers, than can be claimed by any other style of preaching. The truth of this position is vindicated by the fact, that all settled ministries and churches, whenever waked up to a sense of giving the gospel to the poor, do it by sending among them an itinerant missionary. They never do it by settling a minister over them. This necessity proves at once, that a general plan of itinerant ministrations is the best suited to the duty of preaching the gospel to every creature. Nor does the objection, that our rule of frequent changes is not suited to old and settled communities and city congregations, lie with any force against our economy. It is well known, that in all our cities, we have as large congregations as any sister church; and as uniform. And as to the popular objection, that the system is incompatible with a proper pastoral care, its weight is in its speciousness, not in its solidity. No ministers do a larger amount of pastoral duties in cities than the itinerant. And the difficulty of doing so in circuits, exceeds, but in a slight degree, the difficulty felt by all ministers. And after all, it will admit of a very serious doubt, whether the duty of preaching to sinners the unsearchable riches of Christ, is not the first, the paramount duty of ministers; and |