d to one of the great
divisions of this church: "We believe that to sell or to hold in bondage
human beings under the name of chattels, is in contradiction to the
divine laws and to humanity; and that it conflicts with the golden rule
and with the rule of our discipline." Last year, a numerous assemblage
of delegates of the Congregational churches adopted the following
resolution: "Slaveholding is immoral, and slaveholders should not be
admitted as members of Christian churches. We ought to protest against
it without ceasing, in the name of the Gospel, until it shall have
entirely disappeared." And this resolution has not remained a dead
letter: a Congregational church of Ohio has expelled from its bosom one
of its deacons, who had contributed in the capacity of magistrate to the
extradition of a fugitive slave.

Other churches, without taking so decided a position, have at least
manifested by their internal convulsions the profound interest excited
among them by the question of slavery. In this manner a secession has
just rent the Presbyterian church in twain, because the declared
adversaries of slavery were unwilling to remain responsible for a
forbearance which appeared to them criminal. These things are signs of
life, and these signs are beginning to show themselves even in the midst
of ecclesiastical bodies which have acted, until now, in the most
unchristian manner. A warm discussion has been thus called forth, and
this signifies a great deal, among the members of the Episcopal church
in New York. The majority stifled the debate; will it be able to do this
always?

If from the churches we proceed to the religious societies, we find the
same symptoms among them; here, they declare themselves openly against
slavery, in spite of the menaces of the South; there, they succeed in
staving off the question, yet at the price of excited debates, which
continually spring up again, of a great scandal, and of protests which
are heard by Christians through the whole world. The course of conduct
adopted by the great American Board of Missions is the more significant,
inasmuch as its committee is composed of members belonging to various
evangelical denominations; it stands, therefore, as their permanent
representative, yet this has not prevented its adoption, after long
hesitation, of resolutions indicating in what course it will henceforth
proceed: it has broken off its relations with the missionaries employed
among the Chocta