e Church in America,
making them the Protestant Reformed Dutch Church of _North America, in
China_! At present the native churches have an intimate, but not an
_ecclesiastical_, relation to both the Church in England and America.

From the above mistaken statement the Committee have drawn out three
"_particulars_" which they seem to think especially worthy of note.

"1st. That while this Chinese Presbyterial or Classical Council is
itself an autonomy--having the right to ordain ministers, exercise
discipline, and do whatever else a 'self-regulating Classis' or
Presbytery can or may do, still the whole in England is claimed to be
the Presbytery of Amoy, and to this Synod it is reported as the Classis
of Amoy."

How dreadful! English Presbyterians call the body at Amoy a
_Presbytery_, and American Dutchmen call it a _Classis_! If this
language is also meant to imply that the Classis at Amoy is usurping
authority, it is answered in other parts of this paper.

The next "particular" of the Committee is:

"2d. The Missionaries, while they are members of this Grand Presbyterial
or Classical Council, exercising full ministerial functions in it, are,
at the same time, members either of Classes in America, or of
Presbyteries in Great Britain."

The meaning of this second "particular" is, that the Missionaries have a
two-fold ecclesiastical relation. Is there anything contrary to
Scripture doctrine, or to Presbyterian principles, or to common sense,
that ecclesiastical relations should correspond to fact?--that the
Missionaries should have some sort of an ecclesiastical relation, both
to the Church at home and to the Church in China? They have a peculiar
relationship to both these Churches. Why forget or ignore the fact that
they are _Evangelists_ and _not Pastors_? Why object to an
ecclesiastical relationship exactly corresponding to, and required by,
their office and position? The two parts of this relationship do not
contradict each other. They are altogether correlative. The Missionaries
are still agents of the Church which sent them out. Their ecclesiastical
relation to it should be direct, that they may be controlled by it,
independent of any intermediate body. The Church at home cannot afford
to cut off her Missionaries from this immediate relationship so long as
they remain her agents. This does not conflict with, but requires some
sort of a corresponding relationship to the Churches planted and growing
up through t