and according to which we are to govern the charges committed to us.

Consistency, which we would be made to exemplify as a church, by the proposed change, should be regarded by us as an additional reason. Rare as it is, the church of Christ should seek it, and especially should it belong to a body of Christian ministers. If so, why will we consent for the little book, which "we desire to see in every Methodist family," and we may safely add, in the hands of all who wish to become acquainted with Methodism, to misrepresent the largest Christian family in the United States, as the authorized exponent of the rules and regulations of our household? Before we can fully answer the charge of inconsistency, before the bar of our own judgment or of public opinion, we must make our church rules and our practice harmonize by giving up one or the other.

It cannot be successfully questioned, that such a mixture of operative and inoperative law, in the little manual which should furnish the practical rules of Methodism, every page of which should speak to each minister and member with the full authority of church law, has a tendency to diminish the respect that should be, and otherwise would be cherished for the remaining statutes. If it be impressed upon the mind of the young ministers or members of the church, by the great distance between the Discipline and the sanctioned practice of their older and wiser brethren, that there are portions of our rules which they are expected to disregard, and some of these even found among the "general rules," they will be most likely to form a loose notion of church authority; so that there will be less probability that any of our laws will be faithfully observed and executed. When the parent encumbers the mind of the child with a minute code of laws for the government of his conduct, and the child learns that many of them may be broken with impunity, he is not likely to place a very high estimate upon the others. The teachings of childhood may often profit us even to the grave.

3

Closely connected with the above reason, is at least, a partial solution of what seems to be an unreasonable fact in the history of administering the Discipline in our respective charges, namely, the minister often exposes himself to the bitter feelings of such as are tried and expelled from the church; and sometimes of those to whom the church has shown itself lenient. Why is this? Do they accuse him of placing an improper construction upon law, or question that the law has reference to such offences as that for which they have suffered church censure? This is by no means always the case. Here is the ground of their personal hostility towards the minister, or the cause of complaint, which like a "little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" of his membership. According to the practice of the church, at least tacitly sanctioned by the highest authorities of the church, the preacher in charge has large discretionary powers as to what laws shall be enforced, and the prosecuted member quickly points to omissions of which his pastor has been guilty, and asserts that fairness demanded an executive arrest of the law from which he has been made to suffer. No distinction being made, in his mind, between two laws, so far as he can judge, bearing the same marks of authority, he very naturally feels that it is a partial administration that ignores one and enforces the other. Let every rule, which is not designed to be observed and enforced, be removed from the law-book, and this complaint will not be so plausible, and it is believed, by us, not so often made against pastors.

Again, to what points are the most successful assaults directed against our church from without? Are they hurled against the doctrines of our church? True, our doctrinal system has been repeatedly, ingeniously and violently assailed, but each conflict has given fresh cause for the shout of victory from the army of defence. Entrenched behind the Holy Scriptures, our ecclesiastical hosts have always defied the smoke of metaphysics, and all the burnished steel of human artillery. They have stood the mightiest shocks from behind the strong batteries of learning; dared to examine the

Bible in reference to the "glorious mysteries of predestination," and promulgate the light which it pours in upon them; refused to do homage to the spiritual usurpers who would place themselves upon the divine throne and grasp the destinies of the world; shivered the cankered chain by which ecclesiastics have attempted to lift themselves to apostolic eminence; placed bounds to the "much water" dogma, by elevating the mountain of fact and argument to oppose its rolling tide; and in every conflict, they have given proof that "the weapons of their warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God." The same success has attended each skillful defence of a large majority of the rules in our Discipline. But it cannot be doubted, that there are others, and among these we rank the class referred to, in this article, which are not capable of the same triumphant vindication. And our enemies are fast learning the lesson that when we are attacked, search should be made for the weakest points in our fortress. If their public addresses are not directed to the defenceless portions of our Discipline, their private proselytism finds here a large part of its success. He who finds himself under the necessity of defending a sacramental restriction which is subversive of a proper Christian charity among the children of God's household, can call attention to the "Methodist rule upon communion," and say; this is practically almost as close, in the denominational restriction which it draws around the Lord's table, as the rule against which the Methodists enter such a loud protest. If we reply; this ceases to set forth a practical rule of our church, we are met with the very reasonable and troublesome rejoinder; "it remains on your statute book as much an unrepealed law as the one which requires your ministers to administer, and your members to receive the sacrament. If individual ministers choose to seat themselves above the general conference, the only legislative body in your church, and thus refuse to execute the law which that venerable and authoritative tribunal will not repeal, such ministers exhibit a degree of insubordination that illy comports with their solemn promise, 'not to mend but keep the rules'

of the church." Should we attempt to deaden the effect of this blow by asserting that common consent in the church only exacts a compliance with the spirit of the Discipline, and that this is met by our usual invitation to all who are in good (uncensured) standing in the various orthodox churches, we are silenced by the question; "then why not make the letter conform to the spirit?" The people are plausibly told that all our professed liberality towards other denominations, upon the subject of communion, concentrates itself into a rule of discipline that practically, from the very nature of the case, will exclude the members of other churches. Let no reader say, this course is never adopted by those who would stay our influence as a church. Facts will suggest themselves to the minds of many who have seen and felt the effects of this species of reasoning against us. Now let us once more seriously ask, why do we continue in the hands of our opponents such a weapon of offence, when they choose to assail us, or of argumentum ad hominem defence when we attack their uncharitable and unscriptural practice of restricting the Lord's Supper to members of their own church?

We occupy, likewise, an unenviable position upon that question which excites the public mind from one extreme of the country to another. We cannot hope that any inconsistency upon this subject shall escape the strictest scrutiny. All denominations of Christians, and citizens throughout our land, stand ready to pierce with eagle eye the least semblance of unsoundness upon this delicate question. The fact that our Discipline has already been declared an incendiary publication, because of its rules upon slavery, should admonish us that if these do not set forth our opinions and control our practice, they should be abandoned. That they do neither the one or the other, we are fully satisfied. If we have not misunderstood the meaning of our "general rule" on this subject, and its origin and history bear us out in the interpretation placed upon it, who will say, that it expresses the opinion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; or is ever invoked by the administrators of discipline to direct the practice of any

part of our membership? The proviso respecting local preachers is just as much at variance with the practice of Southern Methodists, if indeed the civil law, in all the southern states does not render it a burlesque upon law. The "ninth section" has been declared an inoperative law in point of fact by the general conference. It really seems to us that this explanatory note should drive all the "various views and conflicting interests" in our church to the point of unanimity in asking for the speedy removal of this section. If it has long since, by common consent, ceased to "set forth a practical rule or principle," why retain it. Most unquestionably those who reside in sections of the country where there is great social and political sensitiveness upon the subject, would be relieved by the absence of this section. In retaining these allusions to slavery, we are liable to be misunderstood by those whose excited feelings exert an influence upon their judgments, and to be misrepresented by such as seek a pretext against us. This announcement may seem strange to many, but before we deny it, let us think a few moments. There are several

facts to which we may direct attention calculated to create this impression or give plausibility to this pretext, when viewed through the medium of Southern feeling kept constantly burning by some new phase of Northern abolition movements. Our separation from the Church, North, which the whole southern country regards as now standing allied to abolitionism, no inconsiderable portion of which boldly proclaims this to the world, involved, in addition to our views upon slavery, our practical protest against elevating expediency above law in the trial of our fathers in the ministry, the bishops of the church. It will not suffice to say, many of our able men in the general conference of 1844, and since that time, took safe Southern ground. They expressed their individual opinions, but the Discipline must have more or less influence, in such an issue, in explaining the position taken and retained by the church. Thus much is required to show that our separation from Northern Methodism is not necessarily a demonstration to an excited public mind that the old leaven, which affected the