comparison. Studiously have we avoided it, and the
responsibility must rest on those who compel us to it. (3.) No
consideration is had for the feelings, wishes, or opinions of the native
Churches. Some consideration is shown for the feelings of the English
Presbyterian Missionaries. This is as it ought to be. Yet it is a matter
of _comparatively_ little importance. _The inalienable rights of the
native churches, their relation to each other, their absolute
unity--things of the utmost consequence_--are not at all regarded, are
entirely ignored!

It would have occupied too much space to have quoted the whole of the
Report of the Committee. The preceding part of it occupies nearly six
pages of the Minutes of Synod. Yet we may not pass that part over in
silence, for, while with much of its contents we have no dispute, it
contains some grave mistakes of fact, and, as we think, some very grave
errors of doctrine. It grieves me to say thus much, and also to feel
compelled to add the following strictures. But, in order to discuss this
subject, duty required the careful examination of the whole of the
Report, and, finding in it such errors, the clear statement of them. It
might be easy, perhaps, to account for the fact, that mistakes, in a
report, unprinted, and of such length, should escape the notice of
Synod, but an attempt to apologize for that body might give occasion to
infer more disrespect than simply to point out the mistakes.

After some introductory remarks, chiefly concerning the difficulty of
their task, the Committee "begin with the assertion of principles."
These they make three in number. The sum of the first principle is that
_a Church, by divine arrangement, has government_. The essential idea of
their second principle, so far as we can understand it, is, that _the
Dutch Church has a clearly defined government_. The Missionaries at
Amoy, as well as the ministers in this country, admit both these
principles fully. But they do not affect the question in dispute. Not so
with the third principle of the Committee. Lest I might be supposed to
misrepresent, I will quote their own language: "No government can,
voluntarily, relinquish its powers, and abnegate its authority without
thereby inviting disorder, disquietude, and, in the end, its
destruction." Is this, indeed, as the Committee assert, one of the
"admitted principles" of our Church? one of the "convictions in the mind
of our Church, hardly separable in idea