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THE .WASHINGTON! AN.
AUGUSTA. MAY 24, 1845.
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.
Ret. W. T. Biuntly, Dr. D. Hook,
“ W. J.H*ro, James Harper, Esq,
“ C. S. Dod, A. W. Noee, Esq.
(J7- To Dittwr Susicsistw.—Post Masters are au.
tboriztd by law to remit money to the publishers of
newspapers and periodicals, in' payment of subscrip,
tions. Subscribers to the trashing lonian can therefore
pay for their papers without subjecting themselves or
the publisher to the expense of postage, by handing the
amount to the Pott Master, with a request to remit it.
Temperance Convention.
The State Convention will be held in
Macon, June 4th. Col, Wingfield of
Eatonton, is the anniversary orator.—
The friends of the cause in Macon de
sire large representations from the sev
eral Societies, and proffer to all who may
attend, the hospitalities of the city.—
We do not wish to throw cold water on
the body, (though it would doubtless pre
fer this to any other liquid,) by the ex
pression of any fears about the utility of
such assemblage. We say to all friends
who have the means and time, volunteer
your services to your respective socie
ties. Macon is a very delightful place,
nnd if its people are the same that they
were 6 years ago, they are among the
most hospitable we know.
Southern Baptist Convention.
A Committee consisting of Rev. T.
Curtis, D. D., Rev. W. B. Johnson, D.
D., and Rev. R. Fuller, D. D., was ap
pointed by the Convention to prepare an
address to their brethren, setting forth
the reasons which actuated them to their
separate organization, the principles upon
which it is based, as well as the objects
contemplated by it. Nobly has the com
mittee performed its duty. The address
is an able, manly, temperate, and chris
tian-like document, worthy the body from :
whom it emanated. We commend it to
the attentive perusal of all.
Southern Historical & Ulterary Magazine
We would advise our readers, that we
will take the names of subscribers and
forward them to the Editor at Savanna!).
The Prospectus, to which we invite at
tention, promises much. In the estima
tion of Georgians, and others who feel
much interest in the State, it possesses
thispeculiaradvantage.it “will also be
the medium through which the Georgia
Historical Society will publish much of
its most interest,ng material.”
Utility.
AH will admit this to be at least a test
of virtue. It becomes a more decisive
criterion, tho more extensivo it is—the
wider its scope—tho more powerful its
influence. That is useful, says Dr. Pa
ley, which is so “on the long run.” If
it confer blessing on the individual—the
family—the community and the State, —
if these blessings are of a permanent na
ture—if they likewise improve the men
tal and moral powers—if their influence
extending beyond time, have a favorable
bearing upon eternity—they are useful,
because the general as well as the particu
lar consequences are good “on the long
run.” Let this test be applied to Wash
ingtonianism—and we are persuaded its
utility, its virtue cannot be questioned.
Responsibility.
There is a thrilling denunciation of him
who originates crime, or that which be
comes a source of crime. ‘Wo to the world
because of offences,’ —‘but wo to thal
man by whom the offence cometh.’ We
suppose that he who perpetuates offences,
by his influence and his sanction, is net
much less culpable than he, who origi
nates them. Indeed under certain cir
cumstances he may become more crimi
nal. The person who has beheld the
evil resulting from any vice—who has
seen it withering and blighting whatever
is lovely and useful in man, and after
this knowledge of facts, lends himself to
continue the evils by supporting the crime
which his name and influence might ar
rest, is more guilty than he who partial
)v ignorant of what might be the effects
of a crime, introduces it among men.—
I He may be considered the re-introducer
i of evil with the whole circle of conse
! quences before him, yet maliciously de
signing, and desiring to destroy the hap
piness of his fellows.
The guilt of such a man is augmented
by his position, and his power. The
more elevated and the more influential,
the greater the ability to injure Soci
ety. For, the mass of mankind refu
sing to think for themselves, blindly a
adopt the opinions of those who occupy
commanding positions. Hence it is, that
the character of the sovereign not only
determines the character of his court, but
often that of his people. History, sa
cred, and profane, abounds in proof of
this.
These remarks have been elicited by
the declaration of M. Guizot, the first
subject of France, and the first minister
of the crown, upon the subject of duel
ling—“far from looking on duelling ns a
prejudice, it was an indication of pro
gressive civilization, for that there were
in our manners, interests, and senti
ments, which could be vindicated in no
other way.” What a declaration ! To
speak of murder as a prejudice is suffi
ciently bad—but to make it a test of
civilization is a most alarming falsehood—
a falsehood uttered in the face of all his
tory. The consequences of such a dec
laration, no one can compute; but we
believe many thousands will receive it as
true because M. Guizot has said it.
The moral position he occupies, is in
deed a fearful one. How much will So
ciety have against him ? How can he
appear before God to answer for the sin
he has deliberately committed—the sin
of throwing the weight of his character,
his position, and of his learning, against
the law of God. By his decision, ho
may rob France of many gallant sons—
he may drive from Heaven many pre
cious souls.
Complexity.
Simplicity and unity are desirable in
every human operation. But where will
I one means suffice for any one work]—
Even in shaving, we must have water,
razor—strop—brush, and soap. The
operation is certainly complex. The best
we can do, is to procure the best ingre
dients—Among them soap is pre-eminent
—Jos. Marshall sells the best article we
ever used. It is named Chinese Cream.
We copy the following paragraph from
th 6 Chronicle & Sentinel of Thursday
last:
“A Cow with three Calves. —We saw
yesterday, on the farm of N. B. Moore,
near this city, the novel spectacle of a cow
with three calves. Thecalvesare about
three days old, and though small, evinced
remarkable sprightliness. We have often
heard of cows dropping two calves, but this
is the first instance of three that we have
ever known.”
The Southern Baptist Convention
To thtir Brethren in the United States; to the
congregations connected icith the respective
churches; and to all candid men.
A. painful division has taken place in
the Missionary operations of the Ameri
can Baptists. We would explain the
origin, the principles and the objects of
that division, or the peculiar circum
stances in which the organization of the
Southern Baptist Convention became
necessary.
Let not the extent of this disunion be
exaggerated. At the present time it in
volves only the Foreign and Domestic
Missions of the denomination. Northern
and Southern Baptists are still brethren.
They differ in no article of the faith.
They are guided by the same principles
of gospel order. Fanatical attempts have
indeed been made, in some quarters, to
exclude us of the South from Christian
fellowship. We do not retort these at
tempts; and believe their extent to be
comparatively limited. Our Christian fel
lowship is not, as we feel, a matter to be
obtruded on any one. We abide by that
of our God, his dear Son, and all his bap.
tised followers. The few ultra Northern
brethren to whom we allude must take
what course they please. Their conduct
has not influenced us in this movement.
We do not regard the rupture as extend
ing to foundation principles, nor can we
think that the great body of our Northern
brethren will so regard it. Disunion has
proceeded, however, deplorably far. The
first part of our duty is to show that its
entire origin is with others. This is its
history.
I. The General Convention of the
Baptist denomination of the United States
was composed of brethren from every
part of the American Republic. Its con
stitution kflows uo difference between
I slaveholders and non-slaveholders. Nor
during tire period of its existence for the
last thirty years has it, in practice, known
any thing of this distinction. Both par
ties have contributed steadily and largely
(if never adequately) to those funds
which are the basis of its constituency;
both have yielded its office-bearers of all
grades; its missionaries and translators!
of God’s word, its men of toils many, and
of prayers not unavailing, abroad and at j
home. The honored dead of both these
classes have walked in closest sympathy
with each other; anticipating in the
Board-room and in the Monthly Concert,
that higher, but not holier union now in
their case consummated. Throughout
the entire management ofits early affairs,
the whole struggle with its early difficul
ties, there was no breath of discord be
tween them. ifs Richard Furman and j
its Wm. Staughlon, its Jesse Mercer and
its Thomas Baldwin led on the sacramen
tal host shoulder to shoulder, and heart to
heart. Their rivalry being only in ear
nest efforts for a common cause, their
entire aversions and enmities were direct
ed with all the strength of their souls,
against the common foe. And to the last,
did they not cherish the strong belief that
they left no other enmities or aversions;
no other rivalry, to their successors.?
In particular, a special rule of the con
stitution defines who may be missionaries,
viz: “Such persons only as are in full
communion with seme church in our de
nomination; and who furnish satisfac
tory evidence of genuine piety, good
talents and fervent zeal for the Redeem
er’s cause.” Now, while under this rule
the slaveholder has been, in his turn, cm
ployed as a missionary, it is not alleged
that any other persons than those above
described, have been appointed. More
over the important post of a superinten-!
dent of the education of native missiona-!
ries has been assigned, with universal ap
probation, to the pastor of one of our
largest slaveholding churches.
But an evil hour arrived. Even our
humble efforts in the cofiquest of the
world to God, excited the accuser of our
brethren to cast discord among us; and
in the last two Triennial Conventions,
slavery and anti-slavery men began to
draw off on different sides. How did the
nobler spirits on each side endeavor to
meet this? They proposed and carried
almost unanimously, the following ex
plicit resolution:
“ Resolved , That in co-operating to
gether, ns members of this Convention in
tho work of foreign missions, wc disclaim I
all sanction, either expressed or implied, j
whether of slavery or anti-slavery; but
as individuals, we are free to express and 1
to promote, elsewhere, our views on
these subjects, in a Christian manner and j
spirit.”
Our successors w ill find it difficult to
believe that so important and plain a dec
laration had become, before the close of
the first year of the triennial period, a
perfect nullity. In December last the
acting Board of the convention, at Bos
ton, adopted a new qualification for mis
sionaries, a new special rule, viz: that -
“If any one who shall offer himself for a
missionary, having slaves, should insist
on retaining them ns his property, they
could not appoint him.” “One thing is
certain,” they continue, “We could nev
er be a party to any arrangement which j
implies approbation of slavery.”
We pray our Brethren and all candid
men to mark the date of this novel rule—.
the close of the first six months of their j
three years’ power, a date at which the
Compromise resolution could scarcely
have reached our remoter Mission sta
tions. If usurpation had been intended,
could it have been more fitly timed ? An
usurpation of ecclesiastical power quite
foreign to our polity. £such power was
assumed at a period when the aggrieved
‘thousands of Israel’ had, as it now ap
pears, no practical remedy. Its obvious
tendency was, either or final subjugation
to that power, or a serious interruption
of the flow of Southern benevolence.
The latter was the far more probable
evil; and the Boston Board knew this
well. They were .from various quarters j
apprised of it. We, on the other hand,
did not move in the matter of a new or
ganization until three liberal States had
refused to send Northward any more con
tributions. Our leaders had chosen new
rules. Thus came war within our gates:
while the means of war on the common
enemy were daily diminishing.
By this decision the Board had placed
itself in direct opposition to the Constitu
tion of the Convention. The only rea
son given for this extraordinary and un
constitutional dictum being—that ‘The
appointing power for wise and good pur
poses, is confided to the acting Board.’
On such a slight show of authority, this
Board undertook to declare that to be a
disqualification in one who should offer
himself for a Missionary, which the Con
vention had said shall not be a disqualifi
cation. It had also expressly given its
sanction to Anti-slavery opinions, and
impliedly fixed its condemnation on
slavery, although the convention had said !
! that “ neither” And
further it forbade those who shall opply
for a Missionary appointment to “ eaaress
and promote elsewhere” their vie® on
the subject of slavery in a right “ manner
and spirit,” when the constitution declar
ed they “ were free” to do so. These
brethren, thus acted upon a sentiment
they have failed to prove—That slavery,
lis in all circumstances Innful. Whereas
! their own solemn Resolution in the last
| Convention (their’sas much ours) left usj
free to promote slavery. Was not this ’
leaving us free, and “in a Christian j
spirit and manner ” to promote that which j
in their hearts, and according to the pre
sent shewing of their conduct, they re
gard as a sin?
Enough, perhaps, has been said of the
origin of this movement. Were we ask
ed to characterize the conduct of our
Northern brethren in one short phrase
we should adopt that of the Apostle. It;
was “ FORBIDDING US lO Speak UNTO THE
Gentiles.” Did this deny us no privi- !
lege ? Did it not obstruct us, lay a kind
of Romish interdict upon us in the dis
charge of an imperative duty; a duty
to which the church has been, after the
lapse of ages, awakened universally and
successfully; a duty the very object, and
only object, of our long cherished con
nection and confederation ?
And this would seem the place to state,
that our Northern brethren were dealt
with as brethren to the last moment. —
Several of our churches cherished the
hope that by means of remonstrance and
expostulation, through the last Annual
Meeting of the Board of Managers at
Providence, the Acting Board might be
brought to feel the grevious wrong they
had indicted. The Managing board was
therefore affectionately and respectfully
addressed on the subject, and was en
treated to revise and reverse the obnox
ious interdict. Alas! the results were
—contemptuous silence as to the appli
cation made; and a deliberate resolve,
expressing sympathy with the Acting
Board,and determination to sustain them.
11. The Principles' of the Southern
Baptist Convention it remains then to be
stated, are conservative ; while they are ;
also, as we trust, equitable and liberal.
They propose to do the Lord’s work in
the way our fathers did it. Its title des
ignates at once its origin and the sim
ple, firm abiding of the South on the
ground from which it has been so uncon
stitutionally and unjustly attempted to
eject us. We have but inquired for ‘the
old paths’ of Missionary operations;!
‘asked’ for, and attempted to restore the
practically‘good way.’ The Constitu-1
tion vve adopt is precisely that of the j
original union; that in connection with
which, throughout his Missionary life,
! Adoniram Judson has lived, and under
which Ann Judson and Bnardman has
died. We recede from it no single step,
j VVe have constructed for our basis no
new creed; acting in this manner upon
a Baptist aversion from all creeds but the
Bible. We use the very terms as we up
hold the true spirit and great object of
j the late ‘General Convention of the;
Baptist denomination of the United j
States.’ It is they who wrong us that j
have receded. We have receded nei
ther from the Constitution nor from any .
part of the original ground on which we,
met them in this work. And if, we ask
in parting, the original anjl broad Bible 1
ground of Confederation were not equit-1
able, how came it so nobly and so long
to be acted upon ? If equitable, why
depart from it ?
We claim to have acted in the premi
ses with liberality towards our Northern
brethren. Thrust from the common
platform of equal rights between the
Northern and Southern churches, we
have hut reconstructed that platform.—
Content with it, we adhere to it, and re
produce it, as broad enou<jJi for us and
tor them. Have they thrust us off? We
retain but one feeling in the case. That
we will not practically leave it on any ac
count: much less in obedience to such
usurped authority, or in deference 'to
such a manifest breach of trust as is
j here involved. A breach of covenant
that looks various ways—heavenward
and earthward. For we repeat, they
would forbid us to speak unto the
Gentiles. The Jerusalem church, then
must be regathered at the suspected Sa
maria. or at some new centre of opera
tions like Antioch. “One thing is certain”
—We must go everywhere preaching
the Word. “ IVe can never be a party
to any arrangement” for monopolizing
the Gospel: any arrangement which
like that of the Autocratical Interdict of
the North, would first drive us from our
beloved colored people, of whom they
prove that they know nothing compara
tively, and from the much-wronged Abo
rigines of the country;—and then cut
us off from the whitening fields of the
Heathen harvest-labor; to which by co
gent appeals and solemn pravers, they
have so often protested that, without us,
they were inadequate.
111. Our objects, then, are the exten- j
sion of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the]
| glory of our God. Not disunion with
| any of his people ; not the upholding 0 f
any form of human policy, or civil right •
but God’s glory, and Messiah’s increas’
ing reign ; in the promotion of which,
we find no necessity for relinquishing any
of cur civil rights. We will never in',
terfere with what is Casar's* W T e will
not compromit what is God’s.
These objects will appear in detail on
the face of our Constitution, and in the
proceedings which accompany this ad
dress. They are distributed at present
between two acting Boards for Foreign
and Domestic Missions, having their res
pective seats at Richmond, Va., and Ma
rion, Ala. W"e may sympathize with the
Macedonian cry from every part of the
heathen world, —with the low mean for
spiritual ail, of the four millions of half
s ifledßed Men, cur neighbors; with the
sons of Ethiopia among us, stretching
forth their hands of supplication for the
gcspel, to God and all his people,—and we
have hands from the night
mare of aflßts’ “strife about words
to no the profit of these poor,
perishing and precious souls. Our lan
gitage to all America, and to all Christen
dom, if they will hear us, is “ come
over,” and for these objects, as ye love
souls, and the divine Saviour of souls,
“ help us.” We ask help at this juncture
for nothing else. We have had more
talk than work about these objects too
long. We have waited quite too long
for the more learned and gifted, and op
ulent and worthy, to lead our way to
ward these objects; and we have shor
tened debate upon them to get to busi
ness. Our eyes and hearts are turned
with feelings of parental fondness to-
Burmah and the Karens; with a zeal in
which we nre willing to be counselled by
God and all considerate men (but none
else) —to the continent of Africa, and
her pernicious fountains of idolatry, op
pression and blood; but yet more, with
unutterable hope and thankfulness, to
China and her providentially opened
ports, and teeming thirsty millions. A
mong us, in the South, we have proper
ty, which we will offer to the Lord and
his cause, in these channels—some pro
duce with,which we would have our best
wisdoms to dwell; and professions of a
piety which vve seek to have increased
and purified, like that of the first Baptist
churches, when they had “rest; and
walking in the fear of the Lord, and in
the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were
multiplied.”
In parting with beloved brethren and
old coadjutors in this cause, we could
weep, and have wept, -for ourselves and
for them; hut the season, as well of
weeping as of vain jangling, is we are
constrained to believe, just now past.—
For years the pressure of men’s hands
has been upon us far too heavily. Our
brethren have pressed upon every inch
of our privileges and our sacred rights—
but this shall only urge our gushing souls
to yield proportionately of their renewed
efforts to the Lord, to the church univer
sal, and to a dying world ; even as water
pressed from without rises hut the more
within. Above all the mountain press
ure, of our obligations to God even our
own God; to Christ and to Him cruci
fied ; and to the personal and social
blessings of the Holy Spirit and his in
fluences, shall urge our little streams of
the water of life to flow forth; until ev
cry wilderness and desolate place within
our reach (and what extend of the world’s
wilderness wisely considered is not with
in our reach ?) ‘ shall be glad’—even at
this passing calamity of division; ‘and
the deserts of uncovered human nature
‘ rejoice and blossom as the rose.’
By order of the Convention,
THOMAS CURTIS.
WILLIAM B. JOHNSON.
RICHARD FULLER.
Augusta, (Ga.) 12th May, 1845.
*lt was not dwelt upon in the Augusta con
vention—we do not recollect its being named,
but it was too stringent a fact in the case to be
here omitted—that one of the missionaries, with
whom the Acting Board, and the Board of Man
agers can sympathize, we presume, and whom
they can sustain, (we hope, however, not in this
particular act, but they have in no way openly
protested against it) —brother Mason has actual
ly remitted money to the United States to aid in
assisting slaves to ‘ : run away from their masters,”
a felony by the statute law of several states.
fProv. viii., 12.
Temperance Lecturers.
We are aware that it is a very com
mon belief with many, that that is the
best lecture that secures the greatest
number of names to the temperance
pledge at the time it is given. Now,
though we do not deny the importance of
signing the pledge, we do deny that this
is the best criterion to judge oi the mer
its of a temperance address. Too many,
we apprehend, sign the pledge from im
pulse rather than from a conviction of
understanding; the speaker has wrought
upon their feelings —the whole assembly
has been melted to tears by his fervent
appeals—heart has spoken to heart—the
electric chain has beqp touched and the
fire has passed from soul to soul —and
men and women rush to the Secretary s