There are several other topics which we would gladly discuss had we the space; but we must hasten to glance in conclusion at the changes made in the machinery of the Mission. These are all characterized by one marked feature. It is that they favor the more complete control of the Committee over the missionaries. "Free correspondence," for example, or more properly, secret correspondence under the plea of securing the greater independence of the individual missionary, endangers the liberty of the whole body, by subjecting it to a covert espionage. The declining of "Government Grants," contrary to the policy of the other Missions, throws the missionary more exclusively upon the resources which may be furnished him from the Mission House. The same result accrues also from a severance of the mission from all local Tract and Bible societies. But it is in the dissolution of the Ecclesiastical Organization, and merging the powers of this into the mission body that we detect the most serious evil-for here we have a body so constituted as to allow of no jurisdiction save that of the Committee, which can appoint and depose its members at pleasure. Thus we have the complete subordination of the missionary, under the absolute control of the Mission House. The arrangement is commended in the Report for its simplicity, but it is just such a simplicity as is ever favorable to despotism. We must confess we dislike the system. Its lauded excellence is its chief evil. We would rather have more protection against the Committee; more liberty for the mission to derive aid where best it can, and thus try expedients which the Committee may not be ready to approve, and more direct connection with the ecclesiastical bodies at home. Already have too many complaints about a stringent control reached our ears. These should not be multiplied. The missionaries should not be treated as the mere employés of the Board. With more justice we might regard the Board as an agency employed in providing support for the missionaries as they go forth under a divine call to execute the behests of their master. The missionaries stand on a par with the clergy at home-no higher-no lower-and we cannot consent to have our Prudential Committee exalted into an Episcopate over them, however benevolent may be their intentions. Pemberton Square is not the Zion from whence the law was to

proceed. Let it be so regarded and the glory of our Board departs. Men of manly self-respect will cease to enlist under our charge. It was the remark of Reuben Tinker when asked why he left the service of the Board-" God made me a man, and I felt that I must be one." That class, of which he is a

representative, is happily not extinct in our land.

A few facts here deserve to be noticed:

1. The new theory inaugurated is directly contrary to all the arguments and solicitations heretofore presented by the Missions in India to the Mission-House, and is therefore opposed to all their hitherto declared experiences. This is a point which will not be questioned.

2. The new system obtained sanction from the Missions confessedly either by the power of persuasion or of authority, and therefore, rests mainly upon the wisdom of those who originated it at home.

3. Those older missionaries who were to the last most opposed to the new measures, were such as have ever been most distinguished for their zeal in preaching and visiting among the people, and have been the most successful in winning souls.

4. The new system has operated largely to alienate and drive off to other missions, many of our most intelligent catechists and converts, and has thus bereft our missionaries of a large portion of their strength.

5. No evidences of superior actual success from the new measures proposed, have been as yet adduced by the Deputation in support of their proceedings. With them it has been solely theory versus experience.

6. There is not a single returned missionary from Ceylon in this country-and there are nine of them-that does not deplore the changes we have criticised as hurtful to the mission cause.

Enough has been said to show the ex parte character of the Report. If we mistake not it has been shown, that the Deputation went out charged with a theory which it was their determination to carry out as far as practicable in all the Missions. It has been shown that their investigations went to provide support for this theory; that many of the facts they have gathered are erroneously interpreted; that some of the testimony they have adduced in their favor is fallacious; that the represen

tations of failure in the Mission demanding a new policy, are strenuously denied by the missionaries; that the changes were carried out against the counsel of the older and part of the younger brethren; and, finally, that by means of these changes the powers of control at the Mission-House have been greatly increased. That advantages have been gained by the visit of the Deputation, we will not pretend to deny. They have undoubtedly helped forward some portions of the mission enterprise in the right direction. All they have done to promote village church organizations, we are disposed to approve. The question is, whether seeing that the Missions were already aiming at and steadily making for this same result, the assistance they have rendered in this way will compensate for the expense they have incurred, and will counterbalance the evil they have done. Our deliberate conviction is, that Deputations have no more claim to be trusted in the matter of their judgment, or of their missionary zeal, than the missionaries themselves, and nothing but a clear case of superiority in mental or moral qualifications or a manifest necessity of some sort can justify the one in undertaking to give directions to the other. Certainly a measure so delicate and difficult of right execution ought at the beginning, to have received the full sanction of the Board. In not securing this sanction, we cannot but feel that the Prudential Committee have greatly erred. Herein they have been guilty of a gross assumption of power, which it is to be hoped will be thoroughly guarded against in the future. An apology may be found for it in the fact, that hitherto they have enjoyed an almost unlimited sway, and have had their proceedings subject to no review and control, being most implicitly trusted and habitually lauded. And lest the woe actually come of which we have been so often reminded, the woe that follows when all men speak well of us, it may be well that the Board, taking warning, in season, should prevent so disastrous a result by improving at least a portion of its annual meetings to the strict examination of its administrative affairs, and devote less time to a general glorification. No well-managed body will ever allow such instructions as those detailed in the Report, to proceed from any of its officers annually elected, without being informed thereof, before the end of the third year, as would have

been the case now, had not the special meeting at Albany been called.

We shall conclude this already too long Article, by quoting the following extract from a private letter which it has been our privilege to peruse, coming from a distinguished and judicious. missionary, in altogether another field, and sincerely friendly to the Deputation. It carries so much sound sense, and evinces so excellent a spirit, that we know we shall be pardoned for making use of it without his sanction or name:

On reflection I do not know why I was so much surprised at the debate regarding the doings of the Deputation to India. I think the Committee fell into a mistake in authorizing the inauguration (that is the word now, I believe,) of great changes in the mode of conducting Missions, without consulting the Board. This I think the Committee should at once frankly acknowledge., Nor will it hurt their reputation to make such an acknowledgment. No reasonable man will demand perfection in any body of missionary directors, "To err is human." Then again, I think it is equally human to swing over to extremes. That for many years the extreme of missionary tactics was in favor of gradual literary enlightenment by the press and by schools, rather than of efforts for immediate conversion through the preaching of the word, I have never had any doubt. But now again, there is so strong a re-action, that there is almost a dead certainty that the press and education will be put too far in the back-ground. We cannot dispense with either one or the other, nor should the standard of education be depressed too low. And above all things, any tendency to get up a patent-right machinery for making Christians which all must work just so in all places, without reference to circumstances; this, every missionary and every friend of Missions should sternly resist. The missionary in the main, must be the best judge of the field he is cultivating, and of the changes which the actual progress of his work requires to be made from time to time, and he must be in a great degree free in his action. Without endorsing in any way the course of Mr. P., I know that there can be the "experience of a pressure" too strong for the free expression of individual opinion. And this will always react unhappily when the pressure departs.

These suggestions clearly indicate the nature of the evil to be removed and the remedy to be applied. What we plead for is that the missionaries be allowed, and have secured to them, a larger liberty in the prosecution of their work, the liberty they were wont to enjoy in the times of Evarts and Wisner.

ARTICLE V.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1856.

THE sixty-second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was held in the Madison-Square Church in the City of New York, beginning on May 15th, and was opened with a sermon by the Rev. WILLIAM C. WISNER, D. D., the Moderator of the last Assembly, from Isa. xlvi. 9, 10. The subject of the discourse was the Divine Decrees.

This was the largest Assembly which has sat since the division of the Church. There were present two hundred and six Commissioners, and nine Delegates.

For Moderator, the vote was as follows:

Rev. L. P. HICKOK, D. D., 79.

Rev. GEORGE DUFFIELD, D. D., 74.

Rev. F. A. Ross, D. D., 24.

No one having a majority, Dr. HICKOK was, on motion, unanimously chosen.

Considerable debate arose in relation to the manner in which the record of this matter should be made, involving the plurality and majority question. While, on all sides, any intention of objecting to the election of Dr. Hickok was disclaimed, there was a general and strong feeling in favor of the majority rule. The Assembly comes together with but little knowledge of its constituent parts, and the first vote for Moderator is often merely tentative. The rule requiring a majority gives the requisite time for a fair examination, so that the real will of the House can be carried out. The feeling of the Assembly was further shown by their adoption, on motion of Dr. BEMAN, in relation to voting for the place of the next meeting, of the rule-which appears to be exactly the right one in the election of a Moderator-that a majority shall be required; but if there be no choice on the first vote, that upon the second, only the two places having the highest numbers shall be voted for.

CHURCH ERECTION.

The Report of the Trustees of the Church Erection Fund,