property of common school districts. Thus, also, the property of our higher institutions of learning is exempt; not only because the State should wisely encourage public spirit, but because this property is in reality public. As far as private gain is concerned the capital is sunk, and the advantage chiefly accrues to the public.

Such, then, are the rules in view of which property is ordinarily exempt from taxation. Who will say they are not wise and beneficent? But to carry out to their legitimate conclusion the motives of those who advocate the taxing of churches would be to annul all these rules. All that is merciful, all that has respect to the nobler side of human life, in these provisions for exemption, would be sacrificed to a groveling devotion to money. And yet these men talk and write on as if exemption were an excrescence rather than the beautiful outgrowth of humane and Christian sentiments.

Now we hold also that to tax churches would be in direct violation of every one of these modifying principles, and therefore would not be in accordance with the right and customary rule of taxation.

To tax churches would be oppressive. The tax would be one of the large items in the annual expenses of religious societies. And here it should be remembered that the wealth of a Church is one thing, and the aggregate wealth of its individual members is quite another. The wealth of a Church is measured to no slight extent by the devotion of those who compose it. The making of one's wealth also the wealth of the Church is a matter of voluntary and exceptional devotion. A tax, then, may cripple and embarrass a Church of large reputed wealth, but poor in what makes a Church really rich. And the burden-bearing class, commonly burdened more than is just, may find themselves staggering under a load they cannot long support. And if this, or something approaching this, be true of the stronger and more prosperous Churches, it is not hard to predict what would come to pass with the weaker ones.

To tax churches would be to withhold encouragement from works of public spirit. It would actually make public spirit pay a penalty. The men who at first gave to build churches would be obliged to keep on giving to keep them from being

sold for the collection of taxes. That is, the men who voluntarily tax themselves so that they pay more than their equitable share for the sake of public prosperity, would be taxed still more heavily that the tax of shirks and misers might be slightly lessened.

It would be not only taxing property already taxed, but taxing property that is doing the work of the State. There would be as much propriety in taxing school-houses, not, indeed, in view of legal technicality and forms, but in view of all the principles underlying law, and in view of the deep unchanging needs of human society.

There are several matters in connection with the subject we have not been able to introduce into our line of argument, but one or two of which we wish to touch merely before we conclude.

It has been said that to ask for exemption is equivalent to asking for an appropriation, and terrible pictures of churchly lobbyists maneuvering for money have been presented for the purpose of frightening the Churches into a willingness to be taxed. But plainly to our mind there is some difference between the two things. Of course both are alike in affording financial help. But there is an important difference between the two ways in which the help is given. Appropriations are specific, individual. Exemption is general, including all cases within a certain class. Appropriations are subject to legisla tive caprice and partiality. They open the door for bribery and fraud. Exemption is rather a matter of permanent arrangement, and is, therefore, far less liable to such abuse; in fact, corrupt exemption is almost impossible. Then, again, appropriations are liable to abuse because of the difficulty of determining the proper and just amount. In exemption the benefit bestowed is determined not by conjecture or caprice, but by the actual condition of the case. The amount of church property is a tolerably fair index to the amount of favor deserved, and this determines the amount of favor received.

A quite common objection to exemption is based upon the variety of religious sects. The State must either help all, or help some who deserve any thing else than help. We have two things to say: First, no human legislation is perfect.

Exemption would be an anomaly; it would fulfill conditions required of no other legal arrangement if there were no defects in it; and second, quite likely the large majority of these religious sects which are marked by objectionable features are still doing a work for the State with which the State could not dispense. The variety of denominations may be a good argument against organic union with any one of them, but it furnishes no valid ground for taxing them all.

To

It has often been proposed to assign a limit to the amount of church property exempt beyond which all shall be taxed. But this seems to rest upon the false, but at present rather popular notion that no buildings have the right to be fine or noble but dry-goods stores, railroad depots, insurance blocks, hotels, or something of the money-making kind. exempt cheap, shabby churches because they were within the prescribed limit, might be paying a premium upon meanness. To tax a noble edifice would be quite likely to make generosity pay a fine. To fix such a limit would be a bid offered by the State to induce men to put up structures that would be a credit neither to our Christianity nor to our civilization.

But, after all, quite likely we need apprehend no danger. Some abuses will be corrected, some weak points fortified, but the main features of the case will remain unchanged. There are several facts upon which we rest this conclusion. More than two thirds of our legislators, probably, are in some sort of connection with the Churches.* If not personally allied as communicants, they are held by domestic ties or by their own preference as members of the congregation. They have helped to build the churches. They are obliged by force of circumstances, if better motives fail, to help pay their expenses. We, therefore, are quite confident that the fear of God, the respect for righteousness, the love of money, some one or more of which qualities commonly distinguish these men, will cause what is just and right in the matter to prevail.

* Against such taxation there will be the nearly unanimous opposition of all the worshipers of God in the nation, including Protestants, Romanists, and Jews. The Protestants will hold the Republican party in check; the Romanists, the Democratic. The only danger is from the semi-infidel liberalism predominant in our politics, and that requires an alert watching, and perhaps may demand some energetic counteraction. Our religious press may speak with effect.-ED.

ART. IV.—SHOULD PRESIDING ELDERS BE ELECTED?

To discuss this question understandingly, it is necessary, first of all, to take into consideration the peculiarities of our Methodist Episcopal polity.

The Methodist Episcopal Church is unlike any other ecclesiastical organization. The child of Providence, its economy was not modeled after a previous pattern, manufactured to order, or produced by one or many legislative minds. It is the outgrowth of providential indications, as they appeared in the circumstances and wants of the times. It is because of this a practical economy. It has the strength of constitutional principles, which cannot be destroyed without destroying itself, and is at the same time so flexible that it can be readjusted to any new exigencies which may arise. It is episcopal, yet its episcopacy is as far removed from the prelacy of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Episcopal Churches as night from day. It has offices unknown among other religious bodies. The most notable of these is the presiding eldership, which is peculiarly an institution of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In a most marked manner it was born of our wants, and has grown up into the bone, sinew, blood, and life of our Church polity. Because of its individuality our polity cannot be successfully compared with any other. The ecclesiastical machinery of Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, Romanism, and Protestant Episcopalianism are all so different, that not a wheel, cog, bolt, or any other part, will fit into ours. In order to attach any part thereof to our own, there must be a remodeling and readjusting of the whole.

Doubtless, for all practical purposes, our Methodist Episcopal polity is unequaled in Christendom. Not that it is absolutely perfect; not that it is free from inconveniences; not that it may not need further readjustment and development to meet the exigencies of the future. But in its present form and adaptation to present circumstances, and for the present work before it, it is difficult to see how it could be im. proved, or rendered more efficient. Notwithstanding this, there are many who think they could materially improve it. Our American mind is mechanical in its tendencies. It runs to the

invention and improvement of machinery. This is not only seen in the mechanical contrivances which every-where abound, but in political and ecclesiastical matters as well. Every legislative body tries its hand at "tinkering up" the machinery of State; the result is a mass of "enactments," which burden our statutebooks, without stimulating, fostering, or protecting a single interest of the people. So it is in ecclesiastical matters. If our Church machinery were improved with one change in a hundred that are proposed from time to time, there would not be left a single part of it remaining. Just now this inventive genius is concentrating upon improvements in the mode of appointing presiding elders. It is asserted that this part of our polity is out of joint and needs resetting, and the way to do it is for the ten thousand traveling preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church to resolve themselves into a college of ecclesiastical surgeons and pull it into place by the ballot. Just how this is to be done does not yet fully appear; but the ways of doing it are so many that there can be no difficulty in selecting the best out of the multitude proposed. The action of our fall conferences upon this question shows us that the crisis is upon us, and that we will be forced to settle it some way, and that It is wise, therefore, for us to look into the matter. It is proposed in this paper to show,

soon.

I. The election of presiding elders, instead of appointing them, as now, is contrary to the constitution of our Church, and can only be reached by constitutional processes.

II. The proposed change is a radical one, affecting all the fundamentals of our economy.

III. There is no good and sufficient reason, either in the workings of the presiding eldership as it now exists, or in advantages to be gained by the proposed change, to demand it; but, on the contrary, as far as human foresight can judge, great disadvantage and positive injury.

I. The election of presiding elders, instead of appointing them, as now, is contrary to the constitution of our Church, and can only be reached by constitutional processes.

It is worthy of our attention, first of all, that this proposed change is not an attack upon the office of presiding elder as such, (at least such is not its professed object ;) on the contrary, all the annual and laical conference resolutions calling for the