rtain points connected with the general subject of the
organization of ecclesiastical Judicatories on Mission ground; and asking
our views on the same. We have thought it best to state our answer so as
to cover the whole subject of these several suggestions and inquiries, as
(though they are from different sources) they form but one subject.

Our views are not hasty. They are the result of much thought, experience
and observation. But we are now compelled to throw them together in much
more haste than we could wish, for which, we trust, allowance will be made.

As preliminary we remark that we have actual and practical relations both
to the home churches, and to the churches gathered here, and our
Ecclesiastical relations should correspond thereto.

1. Our Relation to the Home Churches. We are their agents, sent by them to
do a certain work, and supported by them in the doing of that work.
Therefore so long as this relation continues, in all matters affecting our
qualifications for that work,--of course including "matters affecting
ministerial character,"--we should remain subject to their jurisdiction.
In accordance with this we retain our connection with our respective home
Presbyteries or Classes.

2. Our Relation to the Church here. We are the actual pastors of the
churches growing up under our care, until they are far enough advanced to
have native pastors set over them. The first native pastors here were
ordained by the missionaries to the office of "Minister of the Word," the
same office that we ourselves hold. In all subsequent ordinations, and
other ecclesiastical matters, the native pastors have been associated with
the missionaries. The Tai-hoey at Amoy, in this manner, gradually grew up
with perfect parity between the native and foreign members.

With these preliminary statements we proceed to notice the suggestions made
and questions propounded. "To extend to the native churches on mission
ground the lines of separation which exist among Presbyterian bodies" in
home lands is acknowledged to be a great evil. To avoid this evil and to
"bring all the native Presbyterians," in the same locality, "into one
organization," two plans are suggested to us.

The first plan suggested (perhaps we should say mentioned for it is not
advocated), we take to be that the missionaries become not only members of
the ecclesiastical judicatories formed on mission ground, but also amenable
to those judicatories in the same way