CHAPTER XVIII.

POSITION OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES, ETC. CONTINUED.

VII.-VOLUNTARY SOCIETIES CONNECTED WITH SEVERAL SECTS. CONCLUDING REMARKS.

AMERICAN BOARD-Employment of Slaves by Missionaries-A Missionary a slaveowner-Slaveholding tolerated in Mission Churches-Board, at Rochester, decline interfering (1844)-At Brooklyn, 1815, decide against excluding pious Slaveholders from Church ordinances-In 1846, at New Haven, decline further action-In 1847, at Buffalo, promise inquiry-Mission and Letter of Mr. Treat-Reply of Choctaw Missionaries-Vindicate their right to have slaves-Rejected resolutions of Dr. Bacon, at Brooklyn (1845)-Doctrine of "organic sins."-AMERICAN HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY-No rule to exclude Slaveholders from Mission Churches-Has greatly increased the list of its slaveholding Churches since 1842-Other agencies. -AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY-No Bibles for Slaves-Offer of funds for that object rejected-Auxiliary Society at New Orleans disclaimed the intent to supply colored people-Auxiliary Society, Orleans County, N. Y., refused a donation of Bibles to fugitives-Modified but doubtful position of the Parent Society in 1849. -AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY-Publishes nothing against Slavery-Mutilation of books.-AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION-Rejects books that disapprove slavery-Closing remarks.

MISSIONS-AMERICAN BOARD.

THE following statements are from a paper, adopted by the Illinois Central Association, and prepared by a committee, consisting of Pres. Blanchard, Rev. D. Gore, and G. Dewy, at Lafayette, October 9th, 1849*:

"The action which the Board has taken from year to year, on the subject of slavery, is as follows, viz:

"1. Some thirteen years since, the Prudential Committee, in correspondence on the subject, declared against the missionaries hiring slaves, except in cases of emergency.

* National Era, Nov. 8, 1849.

"2. In 1841, eight years ago, at Philadelphia, the subject came before the Board on petition of certain ministers of New Hampshire, who represent themselves as supporters of the Board, not Abolitionists, yet opposed to slavery; and they ask the Board to declare itself distinctly on that subject, as they had done on the subject of other public vices which obstructed the missionary work. To this New Hampshire petition, the Board, by their committee's report, adopted, reply that:

"The Board can sustain no relation to slavery which implies approbation of the system, and, as a Board, can have no connection or sympathy with it.'

"At that time, however, slaves were employed in the service of the mission-schools, the owners being paid for their service, and slaveholders were without objection received to the mission churches; both which practices have continued ever since, and still continue. One of their missionaries, too, was at that time a slave owner-the Rev. Mr. Wilson, of Africa.

"In 1842, at Norwich, Connecticut, several 'memorials and other papers on the subject of slavery' were read by Mr. Greene, and referred. The Board, in their answer, say, 'They cannot but hope that he (Mr. Wilson) will ere long be able, with such counsel and aid as the Prudential Committee may give, to accomplish the object (the liberation of his slaves) in a manner satisfactory to himself, and kind and beneficent to them (i. e., his slaves).'

"In 1843, at Rochester, New York, one memorial on slavery was read by Mr. Greene, and the Board refer, for answer, to their former action on the subject.

"In 1844, at a very large meeting of the Board at Worcester, Massachusetts, memorials on the subject slavery were committed to Drs. Woods and Tyler, Chancellor Walworth, Chief Justice Williams, Drs. Stowe, Sandford, Pomroy, Tappan, McLane, and Secretary Greene.

"The memorials this year set forth that slavery is 'actually tolerated' in the Mission Churches among the Choctaws, 'by the admission of slaveholders as members,' to the hindering of the missionary work, and diminishing the funds of the Board. In their answer, which was adopted by the Board, the committee reiterate the words of the Philadelphia report, three years before, That the Board can sustain no relation to slavery which implies approbation of the system,' &c. But they add, as explaining that clause, 'plainly intimating that we consider it an obvious evil, the removal of which does not fall within the province of the Board.'

"They ask further time to obtain information as to slavery in the Choctaw mission churches, but observe, meantime, that missionaries there, so far as facts appear, have been guilty of 'no violation or neglect of duty.' "In 1845, the Board met at Brooklyn, New York, and much discussion

was elicited by a long report from the above committee, which report, with proposed amendments, was re-committed, reported again, and finally unanimously adopted. This celebrated Brooklyn report declares, among other things, that in the Cherokee and Choctaw missions, 'both masters and slaves were received into the churches on the same principles.'

"That Baptism and the Lord's Supper cannot be scripturally and rightfully denied to those who give credible evidence of piety;' and that, "The missionaries, in connection with the churches which they have gathered, are the sole judges of the sufficiency of this evidence.'

"The committee further report, that at that time there were in the Choctaw churches 20 slaveholders and 131 slaves. In the Cherokee churches, 15 slaveholders and 21 slaves. Total, 35 slaveholders and 152 slaves, in a total membership of 843. And this Brooklyn report further explicitly recognizes the doctrine that both 'master and slave may be gathered into the fold of Christ,' and intimates that this is the way to prepare the master to consent to emancipation.

"In 1846, at New Haven, Connecticut, papers on the subject of slavery were laid before the Board, from the General Congregational Association of Illinois, New Haven East Association, and other bodies. They were referred to a committee, consisting of Chancellor Walworth, Drs. Parker, Stowe, and others, and they reported:

"That they consider the further agitation of the subject here as calculated injuriously to affect the great cause of missions in which the Board is engaged.'

"Up to this time, the doctrines on which the Board stands respecting slavery are :

"1. That slavery, though an admitted evil, is one which the Board is not responsible for removing; and

"2. That masters and slaves

to be received into fellowship in the

churches, giving evidence of piety; and

"3. That the missionaries and churches among the Choctaws are the only judges of the credibility of that evidence.

"In 1847, the Board met at Buffalo, New York, when an honorary member of the Board moved that a committee be appointed to inquire whether any further action was required in reference to slavery among the Choctaws and Cherokees. The Secretaries replied, that they had every possible disposition to remove slavery and every other evil and sin as speedily as possible from the mission churches,' and that one of their number would visit the missions in question, and the whole subject of their slavery relations would come up on his report the following year.

"Mr. Secretary Treat accordingly visited those Indian missions, and the result of his visit, his report, and the correspondence connected with it, are before the public. The material facts shown by his report are, the one con

tained in the Brooklyn report of 1845, viz: that the mission churches receive slaveholders to fellowship; and slaves, to a certain extent, are hired of their owners to work at the Choctaw boarding-schools. While this is the fact, the Indian youth must of course learn contempt of labor along with the rudiments of science, and slavery must become part of their intellectual culture, if not of their religious.

6

"Of this the Prudential Committee seem to have been convinced, and hence, in Mr. Treat's celebrated letter of June 22d, last year, the Prudential Committee declare, explicitly, that the Board could never have intended that slaveholders should be received to church-membership, WITHOUT INQUIRING AS TO THEIR VIEWS AND FEELINGS IN REGARD TO SLAVERY.' And if he holds and treats those for whom Christ died with A SELFISH SPIRIT AND FOR SELFISH PURPOSES,' they say, 'for admitting such an one to the privileges of the people of God, especially in the advanced stage to which your mission has arrived, we know no warrant whatever.' And while they hold this strong and explicit language on the subject of receiving slaveholders into the church, they use far stronger and more explicit language on the subject of employing slaves at the schools. They say on this subject to the missionaries, 'If you can discover no method by which a change can be effected, we submit for your consideration whether it be not desirable to request the Choctaw government to relieve us from our engagement in respect to the boarding-schools.'-Treat's Letter, June 22, 1848.

"The report of Mr. Treat of his visit to the Choctaw and Cherokee missions, with the correspondence growing out of it, were reported to the Board at their meeting in Boston last year; and while the anti-slavery portions of the American churches regarded the ground taken by the Prudential Committee, and the Board as silently acquiescing in it, as essentially antislavery and satisfactory to reasonable Christians,* loud and bitter complaints were raised by the missionaries among Choctaws, and generally by the pro-slavery portions of the church. These complaints against the Prudential Committee have been extensively published during the last year in the New York Observer, Christian Observer, and other Presbyterian papers further South.

*With perfect respect to the Committee that drafted, and the Association that adopted this paper, the author submits that the ground taken by the Prudential Committee, even if it had been maintained by the Board, ought not to be satisfactory to "reasonable Christians." By the implication that slaves are sometimes held otherwise than "with a selfish spirit and for selfish purposes"-and that such slaveholding is consistent with church-membership, the very gist of the whole controversy is relinquished. Such a diluted testimony only invited the resistance it received. If slaveholding is wrong, there is no occasion or propriety in asking the candidate's "views and feelings in regard to slavery" while he continues the prac tice, and is to be indulged in it. But if the practice be right, the question becomes manifestly useless.

"In these circumstances, the public looked with intense interest to the late meeting of the Board at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. If the Board ever intends to cease to sustain slaveholding mission-churches, and slave-hiring mission-schools, it would seem that thirteen years is ample time for the Board to make up its mind to declare, at least, that such is its FUTURE intention. But, instead of any such intimation, Mr. Secretary Treat simply reported to the Board an apologetic and deprecatory note issued by the Secretaries during the year, in answer to the complaints against Treat's letter, and the reply to that letter of the Choctaw missionaries. In this note, issued from the mission-house in February last, the Secretaries sayThe committee have never had any intention of "cutting off" the Choctaw mission from its connection with the Board,' but repeat the expression of their undiminished confidence in the integrity of these servants of Christ.'

"The reply of the Choctaw missionaries to Mr. Treat's letter is written in a softer tone than their letter to which Mr. Treat's was a reply, but it abates no whit of their former pretensions, and surrenders no principle laid down in their former letter.

"On the subject of receiving slaveholders to church-membership, a principal point of Mr. Treat's letter of June 22d, THEY DO NOT DEIGN TO SAY ONE WORD; but simply observe, that five and twenty years ago they thought 'the subject of slavery, as it relates to their mission, was settled upon a scriptural basis.'

"On the subject of hiring slaves of their owners to do the work of the mission-schools, they at great length VINDICATE THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO, placing it upon the same ground with using slave-grown produce in the free States. They, however, feebly intimate their willingness to employ none but free help, provided it can be obtained;' but assert, over and again, their intention to hire slaves, if necess

"The above papers were submitted to the Board, with an intimation that no action upon them was desired, on the ground that the correspondence (now of thirteen years' standing) is not yet completed!

Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, moved the reference of the subject to a special committee; but this motion was overruled by a proposition of Chancellor Walworth, and the subject passed off without action or discussion, with a remark of the Secretary's report, as reported by the N. Y. Evangelist, 'That the mission are willing to do all that can properly be required of them to place this subject on the desired basis.'

"In respect to the above, it will be observed:

"1. That the missionaries intimate no intention ever to cease receiving slaveholders to their churches, but vindicate the practice as scriptural.

"2. That the Board, by its Brooklyn report, to which it adheres, has constituted them and their churches SOLE JUDGES ON THE SUBJECT.